DRESS DESIGNERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 102, 27 October 1936, Page 17

DRESS DESIGNERS

SAFEGUARDING MODELS

■Paris' dress designers have a difficult time in protecting their copyright and seeing to it that those who buy their models reproduce them under conditions which do them justice and do not spoil their market (states an exchange). There are always the enemies at home who find means to discover the secrets of the new models and make hasty copies of them in cheaper materials and with less good wox'k, so that they become useless from the designers' point of "view. A new peril has now arisen which seems more difficult to cope with. Big American houses all send their buyers to Paris, and attendance at most of the big shows carries with it.the condition that at least one model is purchased. This model may cost anything' from £60 to £100. The expense, therefore,! is big, especially when to it must be added the travelling expenses and payment of the skilled buyer. It seems that some American firms have seized upon i the idea of hiring models from those who have bought them in Paris. Thus, the 'house which' has purchased them is not necessarily that which will reproduce them, and a given model may, be hired out to any number of cheaper firms, who then proceed at once to copy it on cheap lines, not only making of it a commonplace at once but doing it no justice by their metl»ids. It seems nearly impossible to stop this practice, which in effect means that French designers get no credit for their ideas. Some of the leading designers have refused to sell models to some American firms suspected of purchasing models only to hire them out to inferior firms. This may be some deterrent, since ultimately no outstanding American firm can afford to dispense with the Paris model. But to find out at all who is giving away their secrets is a long and difficult business, especially at a time when all business is difficult enough at home.