Crimes of Fashion

Many of us won’t admit to it, but we hate seeing others copy our style down to the very last detail. We all understand that Steve Madden sells multiple pairs of the same shoe, and that we probably aren’t the only ones our age that shop for one-shoulder dresses from Bebe, but we all occasionally feel awkward when we see another person wearing the exact same outfit.  Everyone wants to have their own style,  and appear as though they dance to the beat of their own drum, so why does it bother us so much when we see ourselves version 2.0?

In the world of the arts, being “copied” unfortunately happens very often, and the culprits usually hide under the guise of merely being “inspired”.  Some of the greatest artists of our time have even been accused of stealing ideas and passing them off as their own, including Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Plagiarism was even the subject matter for the 2011 film Anonymous. The film suggests that in the 16^th century, beloved author William Shakespeare was a fraud and did not actually pen those timeless stories we all know and love. Nowadays, it is very common for authors to hire ghost writers, the people that stay out of the spotlight and do all the work, while “authors” with more marketable brands put their name on the work and take all the credit for it. The only reason why ghost writers don’t mind this arrangement is because they permit it, you know, in return for a handsome paycheck of course.

High school and college students are somewhat threatened on a daily basis and warned that plagiarism is a heinous crime punishable by death, I mean, expulsion. Cite your sources!! Quote Everything!! We'll catch you if you don't!! Sound familiar? Plagiarism is not a joke, but in the fashion industry, people seem to think no one will notice. Designers usually don’t believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They often view borrowing their ideas as insulting and egregious and they certainly won’t hesitate to sue.

We want to know what you think. Do the images in the slideshow fall under “inspiration” or blatant “imitation”?