From start-up to catwalk

"Fashion IP: From start-up to catwalk: A Four City Investigation" is an exciting new project under the auspices of CREATe and Goldsmiths, University of London.

This project will seek to understand how questions of Intellectual Property impacts on the professional practices of designers and design teams across the spectrum from small graduate led start-ups, to medium-sized designer outlets and also to a handful of retailers in four cities, London, Berlin, Paris and Milan.

This project is to be conducted under the leadership of Professor Angela McRobbie with the support of  fashion law consultant and blogger Tania Phipps-Rufus.

Works of artistic craftsmanship -- or merely
prototypes to be modified for mass-production?
(Photo from Popsugar)

Given the transformation that overtakes fashion designs in legal terms, from what are often effectively quite fanciful works of artistic craftsmanship to mass-produced goods destined for the high street shops (and now, increasingly, online sale), it will be interesting to see how the project views copyright protection at the top end of the process.