Murdering someone is surely a punishable crime. Copying someone’s art or design is an equally worse crime and does not deserve a bail. Every piece of design or art is unique and original in its own way. Each time the same gets copied, it does bleed creativity and strangle original ideas and thoughts. But then many loves to tag a good word to copying of ideas – ‘inspiration’. It does feel good to get enriched, inspired and charmed by someone and their ideas. But what feels really annoying is that under the shed of inspiration too much is happening at the moment and way too many people are copying original designs and artwork without any shame. There is certainly no mercy in being a copy cat and giving the world access to cheap copies of the original and making the same easily available at a throw away price. The lingerie industry is not far away from this copy drive, while there is a space wherein it is healthy to immerse yourself within the stances of originality and then taking it forward by giving credits to your inspiration. While it is totally another thing to openly succumb to the principle of copying without paying any tribute or attention to the popularity of the original designs. Much thoughts and strategies evolve to produce the best of designs, thus we wanted to know what the designer fraternity think or feel about this ongoing ‘copy trend’. How are they dealing with the cause? Let’s hear it from them.
DIVYA GUPTA
Lingerie & Nightwear designer
A graduate from National Institute Of Fashion Technology, New Delhi with specialization in knitwear technology, Divya has worked with India’s biggest domestic lingerie brand, GROVERSONS Apparel PVT. LTD as head Lingerie and Nightwear designer for 2 years. Passionate about lingerie industry, she keeps exploring every aspect related to this field right from research to design to production to sales. Apart from Groversons, she has designed for brands like Rupa & Co., Crusoe, Kalyani innerwear, Neva etc. An expert in her own right, she also runs a “custom” made lingerie brand – Aah! Intimates and extends her expertise as a personal bra fitter too. Today she is known for expert consultancy and the assistance she provides to lingerie companies in designing, sampling and sourcing of nightwear and lingerie.
I have been working in this industry for the last 6 years, and through this time am witnessing a mammoth change Indian lingerie industry is going through. It’s only possible due to hard work and the new innovations Indian companies are putting into their products.
When I started, hardly any company had a concept of a designer or a sampling room. Only bigger giants could have afforded this luxury, but that too was under the mercy of their “master ji”. Over the last 5 years, everything has drastically changed; companies are investing in technological innovations, R&D and designing. With this upgrade, comes the problem of “copying”, although it is a human instinct to get “inspired” from great works, but these days people tend to just copy designs, technology etc. This problem might be deep rooted from the fact that in India, not much time, energy or money is given to R&D.
The pressure on designers is even worse in export or buying houses. Running against the limited time, it gets difficult to come up with new ideas or bring out your creative best. Thus many designers end up copying from various sources. And the process of patenting is long and tedious too, thus making it difficult for any brand to protect their “designs” or “technology”. Just making stricter law would not be enough to solve this problem. As a country, we should be more open towards the investment we make in R&D.
If you check globally, Indians rank among the lowest to file for global patents. As schools, colleges, institutes, companies & brands, we should give greater opportunities to our scientists, designers, engineers to innovate and create new products.
NIDHI MUNIM
Swimwear & Resortwear designer, Creative Director at Nidhi Munim India
Nidhi is credited with the vision that is the cornerstone of the brands image. It is this vision that has created some of the most iconic images for which the brand has received the industry’s highest honours including the Kingfisher SuperModels ,Kingfisher Calender , FBB Femina Miss India and Karan Johar’s Lakme School of Style. The brand has been worn by celebrities Deepika Padukone , Ileana D Cruz , Sunny Leone , Esha Gupta , Nargis Fakhri , Sara Loren and Evelyn Sharma to name a few. Nidhi’s swim and resortwear is also being styled in the most iconic bollywood movies.
The successful global expansion may be attributed in part to Nidhi’s lead role in overseeing the development of the domestic and international licensing and export businesses. Under her keen supervision, the brand is distributed in over 10 countries.
Plagiarism is the practice of someone else taking your work and passing it off as their own…. It’s illegal, and that’s why it is essential to have a copyright symbol in your footer. It is necessary to stay protected and be in control of your make and design so that you are always guarded against the tough times and the upcoming hazards of getting copied.
Nevertheless , the only way to keep a check on the same is by creating a significant brand and acquire so much prominence and gain superb customer loyalty so that no matter what the copier copies and offers, the customer is impelled to procure the original product. It is like a challenge that we all have to bear in our hearts and wholeheartedly accept whenever we are readying to put our thoughts to design.
Our purpose thus is to give shape to collections that stand the test of time and are well balanced and extremely upbeat in every way. This way we stand up to create something that stands for its own and even though they end up getting copied, the value of the original will be so strong and valuable as compared to the copies that coming back to the original will be a natural in every which way!
CHANDAN RAJ
Lingerie & Nightwear designer
Chandan is involved in designing for SOIE at the moment, a graduate in Knitwear Design from NIFT Bangalore. The course gives a very holistic and comprehensive view of the design industry. With the first-hand experience of working in a professional atmosphere with Zivame and BLR knits as an intern, has not only helped him improve his skills at an early stage of his career, but he was also able to contribute significantly through his hard work, skills and knowledge in the field of lingerie design. Today he mans from the front at one of the most favourite lingerie brands of India and aesthetically looks forward to transcend his ideas to make for the best fit and design for the modern women.
Any design that works or is a an acclaimed piece can be copied and looking back down the decades we have seen several brands catching the copy masters red-handed. But my question is rather than catching the culprit let’s delve a notch deeper and see what is actually lacking to arrive at this point? One reason is of course originality, another would be lack of proper framework and technology to support newer talents and their ideas. Having said that let’s also understand that how much ever one copies big brands and their bestsellers, we still cannot get close to the original through imitation.
Designers in India do not mostly get their fair share of exposure and does not get a chance to bloom to glory with their designs. There is a lot of doubt that prevails within the system and trusting someone coming up with an original new idea is a question we need to tackle better. It is an easy route to try those or replicate those designs that are doing well. But who will take the risk to make the new work?
This question is still unanswered, even though many brands are today aligning themselves to validate and find better ways to encounter this aspect. But the same has not been achieved rightfully until now. Also good design minds do not want to be a part of the lingerie industry owing to the lack of job opportunities. Once this issue is also tackled better there will be more in flow of better talents and originality will prevail. Also the question of patent etc will only arise when we churn out ideas that are superbly immortal, much like a louis vuitton that has survived ages and still is contemporary in every way.
DHANYA SUSHAMA
Chief Manager-Product, V-Star Creations Pvt.Ltd.
With more than 10 years of experience and expertise, Dhanya is known for her superb insights and her abilities to spot the rights when it comes to identifying trends and incorporating ‘new’ in innerwear. She is superbly prolific in her ways and has experience of working with brands like Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail limited and Jockey. After having headed the product team for innerwear with these noteworthy brands, she is now adding on to more energy and unnerving passion to V Star’s collections.
Putting a check on designers and asking them to stop copying each other’s ideas and designs or holding a patent for some noteworthy designs are just not all. Back in time Jockey had held patent for some of their collections, but even though it was a known fact many brands openly copied the patterns and there was no stopping. Of course a copy is always a cheaper version of the original and can never stand up to the beauty and strength of the original, but still it is sad but true that a patent can rarely hold one from copying what’s selling and what’s unique.
Its important for Lingerie designers to get a space wherein they can create and give shape to unique ideas. There is less scope for one to try out something new and develop unique as a part of the lingerie industry at present. As even though the International brands are key to bringing change to the intimate apparel industry, but the local brands are surely less responsive and will only obey to the market figures primarily.
There still is an ongoing trend wherein brands believe in crunching numbers and making for designs that sells and lingerie is such an arena that some way or the other with a little tweaking here and there one can keep churning out designs that sell, which are 70% similar to tried and tested designs that have sold hits for so long!
Possibility to check on the copying mechanism could not really be done by patenting designs. It can otherwise be achieved only through development of a consciousness and ability to believe in designs that work best for the Indian market which also includes getting the sizes right. There is certainly a dearth of designers within the lingerie industry today and more new minds and creative experts have to be turned the lingerie industry side to bring in that ultimate change!
