“COPYCATS” by bloguseraf draws attention to the issue of copying in the fashion industry. Bloguseraf uses the example of Bikbok, a Scandinavian fast fashion brand, that copied the design of the well-known Gucci shirt.
The introduction is excitingly designed and explains directly what is meant by the heading. The title “Copycats” is quite catchy, maybe it could be more obvious what the blogpost is about, a suggestion would simply be “Copycats in the Fashion World”.
Right at the beginning the author starts with questions to the readers which arouses interest to read on and keeps the reader attentive. The used language and questions fit perfectly to the blogpost format.
The example from the media is well chosen, it shows how widely imitation is used in the fashion industry. When it comes to copycat, the author brings in his own opinion very well. Statements such as “It is simply unfair for someone to copy another design […]” shows the opinion of the author – I definitely agree with him here.
Another good point is the comparison with the music business and the explanation how copying is countered in this industry. Despite this decent comparison, we should keep in mind that the fashion industry kind of lives from copying. Nowadays, the big fast-fashion chains bring the catwalk trends of high-end fashion to the broad mass market as a low-cost option. It’s (unfortunately) quite common in the fashion industry that everything is copied.
If you do additional research you can find even more cases where Bikbok has copied brands such as Supreme, Calvin Klein and Champion.
Unfortunately, I can only identify a little connection to the syllabus. The post is probably about value creation, which is not explicitly addressed and no theory from the syllabus is used. The issue of originality is mentioned, which could have been critically questioned by the author.
We learned that originality adds value to design, the 4 sources of value creation in design by Borja de Mozota (2006) could have been used as a basis. One of them is the differentiation, which means that one has a market advantage derived from design-based differentiation.
Bikbok clearly didn’t achieve this in that case. They reproduced other brands’ designs – just in cheap and with another lettering; in the business view they achieved kind of a differentiation through the price but in the design view – it’s still copying. Even though imitation is not okay, the shirts sold well. How Bikbok’s image was influenced exactly is not clear, but in the media they were criticized for it.
In summary, the blogpost is easy to read and the structuring makes sense, but it is hard to grasp what the exact matter of the post is. The used photo makes the topic more vivid, I just would have liked the topic to be discussed and questioned more critically. Some of the discussed issues would simply need more explanation and a link to theory to strengthen the arguments of the author.
Sources: Lecture 5
Photos: https://www.reddit.com/r/FashionReps/comments/6oiqmw/swedish_store_bikbok_releases_straight_up_copied/
by marie119
Making sense of art and design industries 