Fashion Court: Louboutin vs. YSL

Those that follow fashion news will know that recently, Christian Louboutin filed a lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent.  The reason for the suit is that some of the soles of YSL’s latest Resort collection pumps were – gasp – red!

Apparently, in 2008 Louboutin filed a patent protecting its usage of red-soled shoes.  The recent suit stated that YSL was violating this patent and was seeking damages.  Unfortunately for Louboutin, the company’s efforts have so far backfired.  A New York City judge ruled on August 10th not only in YSL’s favor, but furthermore that the outer sole of a shoe is actually not eligible for trademark protection.  Indeed, “in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition,” and, therefore such a trademark would obstruct fashion’s creative process.

This whole legal mess is reflective of some major current issues in the fashion world today.  Counterfeiting is an enormous problem that extends to all areas of the globe.  In fact, the counterfeit fashion industry is estimated to be worth several billion dollars worldwide.  A similar problem, I’ll call it “copycatting” is also a huge issue because a lot of companies, while not selling identical recreations of other designers’ works, are making very similar items that differ only on just a few details.

Fashion is a creative industry that relies on the inspirations of designers and their teams to bring us fresh, exciting and evocative new styles every year.  Counterfeiters and copycats are essentially stealing the creative property of these designers and brands.  This cheapens the value of the brands being copied and also eats into their revenues.  On the other hand, however, fashion recycles itself, and current trends are always channeling styles from past decades.  The hem lines go up, they go down – it can always be correlated to some previous years’ collections.  Fashion has an inherent component of repetition.

What many articles on the Louboutin-YSL case have failed to mention is the nature of the Yves Saint Laurent red soles in question.  In the disputed collection, there are three shoe styles with red soles, and each shoe is red not only on the bottom, but all over.  The same three styles come in other single bold colors and the same uni-colored pattern applies.  This detail really changes the case from my perspective.  What is unique about the red Louboutin sole, to me – and to many others I believe, is that it stands out on each of the designer’s shoes no matter the style, height or material of the shoe.  The soles of these YSL pumps are just extensions of the entire red design of the shoe.

In any case, the fashion industry today finds itself in a sticky place.  Fashion brings life, color and variation to our lives.  How boring would it be if we all wore the exact same thing?  Fashion is fun because there is diversity, which allows for individuality.  Designers need protection from counterfeiters for their unique designers, but they also need to have the right to use the shapes, colors, patterns and cuts that they require to make new collections.  So…where do we draw the line?