Dress Codes: Fashioning Intellectual Property

This book addresses the social, commercial, legal and cultural relationship between fashion and its protection through an interdisciplinary approach to the application of the law, not only in terms of the relevance of the law and the management and sociology of knowledge in the fashion industries, but also in terms of the interaction with art history and fashion theory, as well as socio-economic and cultural concerns. The work analyses critically the social, political and legal aspects of the fashion and design industries and addresses the sometimes difficult relationship between fashion and law in a commercial as well as social context. The study characterises this relationship carefully, beginning by tracing the historical and sociological foundations for fashion and its curation, both as public and personal object, and taking this through to contemporary practices of collaboration, transformation and the process of design, all of which present particular challenges to a traditional intellectual property practice. Through a series of discussions and particular examples, the book provides specific insight into design practice, fashion and art, fashion media, merchandising and retail curation, towards a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between fashion and intellectual property. However, the discussion is especially relevant to current and topical commercial and practical tensions in other areas of the creative industries, in that it takes the extension of artistic and commercial practice into the productive relationships between fashion and art, music, film, celebrity and the digital. Therefore, through a thorough examination of the fashion industries, the book allows for a wider insight into the creative industries more broadly speaking.

Author Biography

Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law and former Director (2007-2014) of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London. She was also Director of the independent research charity, the Intellectual Property Institute (IPI) from 2010-2013. Much of Gibson’s research is concerned with intellectual property and socio-economic development. She has consulted to the European Commission on international knowledge transfer, the European Patent Office on future patent policy, and the UK Intellectual Property Office. Gibson has particular research interests in legal theory and intellectual property law, traditional knowledge and cultural diversity, and the relationship between intellectual property systems and the narration of culture and innovation. Gibson has published widely in leading journals and edited collections and is the author of four books, all published with Ashgate.