Unlike bag-maker Hermes, which pursued manufacturers who were copying their bag designs, the fashion giant Chanel seems pretty sanguine about the numerous copycat designs imitating the hit women's jacket of the season.
Such look-alikes do not trouble Chanel. The company declined to say how many of its jackets had been sold, but it revealed that there is still a waiting list. "Because of the copycats, so many of our customers have told us that they want the 'real thing' more than ever," Arie L. Kopelman, Chanel's chief executive, insisted.
Kal Ruttenstein, the fashion director of Bloomingdale's, was a bit uneasy, though. Sure, Chanel is selling. But the mass-market imitations, and especially a fringed version at Zara, "has hurt our business," he said.
High fashion (especially of the obscenely expensive type) is a strange, strange world for intellectual property.