99% Invisible - Knockoffs: Articles of Interest #8

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Brands hold immense sway over both consumers and the American legal system. Few know this as well as Dapper Dan, who went from street hustler to fashion impresario and has spent time on both sides of American trademark law. Articles of Interest is a limited-run podcast series about fashion, housed inside the design and architecture podcast 99% Invisible. Launched in 2018 by Avery Trufelman, the show encourages people to rethink the way we look at what we wear and what it says about us.

When your name is Dan, you get a lot of nicknames. Growing up in Harlem, Daniel Day heard his fair share of them. Sometimes I go back to my old neighborhood on the east side where everybody calls me the anyboy. But the sober K that would stick, the one most people would come to know was Dapper Dan. Because from a young age, he'd like to look good. Clothes was aapper Dan. Because from a young age, he liked to look good. Clothes was a transformative thing.

If you got dressed, you got really dressed up and you went downtown, nobody knew you came from the forest, maybe it didn't follow. That's what made a difference. People of color, when you dress, that has an equalizing effect on how you feel, especially if you can dress better in the white kids that you see.

Dapper Dan's life took a lot of crazy turns, including, but not limited to, years of running street bets and dice games, a ring of credit card fraud, an arrest and a ruba, time in prison. He was a hustler and a gambler for decades. But what he's best known for is what he did after all that. When he decided to get away from his life of crime Sort of when I didn't want to be involved in other other games us in the street games negative street game. I look for something else to do the year was 1980 Dan was in his late 30s since I knew all the people who liked the dress and the ones who had the money I said that would be a great opportunity for me and I knew that that door would be open for me. Dapper Dan wanted to get into the fashion game to live up to his honorific.

But he had to start somewhere so he started selling stolen clothes. I did a back-and-forth call, used call. I go around to all the hustlers, all the spots where they be at, all the street people. And you got a real taste for the kinds of fashions people in Harlem we're looking for. Dan's clients wanted color and flair and personality. Of a dark Eurocentric stuff you'd find in a Madison Avenue boutique. So you want real soul fly stuff? You want to get into that gritty soul look. You got to come to a real gritty soul guy. So, Dapper Dan saved up money and opened a shop in 1982. He hired

tailors and seamstresses and created custom furs and leather goods for his clients making whatever they wanted. Dapper Dan and his tailors were pretty dynamic. He didn't have any one signature look or style. That was until one day when one of the most popular hustlers in Harlem marched into Dan's shop. He came into the store one day and he had a Louis Vuitton pouch. And it was full of $100 bills. So everybody was looking at it. Everybody got excited about it. But everyone was ignoring the hundred dollar bills. And he got excited about the bag itself. And I looked at that bag and I said, why are they excited? It's only five hours with vinyl. I know all about it. But it was the symbols

on the bag. Those little Ls and Vs and Quattro foils all over that Louis Vuitton bag. And in that moment, Dapper Dan came up with an idea that would turn fashion upside down. A bulb went off in my head. Oh! And his idea was to take those symbols on that bag and steal them. Articles of interest. A show about what we wear. Season 2.

People don't realize it's fantasy. It's always this thing that you have to work extra hard to get. Mmm, that's so good. No one dresses like a king anymore. How do you make money? That's how I make money, love. There are lots of things that we take for granted that would once have been considered luxuries.

Sometimes, if I'm passing through downtown San Francisco, or Manhattan, or in an airport, or in a mall, I'll look around and I'll take stock of the retail landscape. Massive posters of poorless, dough-eyed faces stare down at me, advertising handbags that cost double my rent. And sometimes I look around and I'm just like, Who is this for? Who could possibly afford all this? How is there enough money around to keep all these brands in business and their flagship stores around the world? Who is impulsively buying a $2,000 Burberry coat wilting in an airport boutique?

Who is stumbling into a protestor front to try on a dress? Who is this for? Turns out, this is for you. The point isn't to make money. The point is to build up a brand and an identity that then will sell the things that do make money which are usually accessories that are relatively cheap. So everything from shoes, handbags, on down to little wallets and sunglasses and whatever. UCLA Law Professor Karl Rastiala says that the lux advertisements, the intimidating shops,

and to a degree, the runway shows are about building up the mythology of a brand so that they can sell their logo on other stuff. Kouture often operates primarily to build a brand and runway shows do that as well. A lot of stuff that goes on the runways never sees the light of day in a store. It's about the performance of a brand, the creation of a story. Because for the right name, the right symbol, we will buy something not in spite of its price, but because of it. So normally we think supply and demand, kind of driven by price, and that the cheap or

something gets, more people are going to consume it. That's true for most things. If those like gas is cheaper, people are going to drive more. That's normal goods. Fabling goods are as they get more expensive. People are drawn to it. Fabling goods are named for Torsten Fablin. Fablin was an economist way back in the distant past. 121 years ago, it would be more precise. Who talked about the fact that some things are more attractive than more expensive they are. And certain things actually, the very cost of them

are part of their appeal. Luxury is almost like the quantum physics of economics. We're all the established laws of supply and demand to just go out the window. That's true for a lot of things in the fashion world because fashion is so often about both self-expression but also about excluding others and showing that you have high status. So the more expensive and unattainable they are, the better. And the more expensive and unattainable they are,

the more likely it is that someone is going to knock them off. someone is going to knock them off. As Chinatown descends into the financial district, all along Canal Street in Manhattan, people will approach you clad in black baseball caps holding up laminated sheets of paper. And these laminated bits of paper are basically menus showing the variety of knock-off handbags they're pedaling. How much for number 21? That one? Yeah. 100 dollar, nice to collect. Yeah? You collect.

Maybe this is if you do no one, they'll go 400 dollar. When you point to a bag on the laminated menu, your dealer will go fetch it from a storeroom nearby. This convoluted system helps the sellers keep a low profile, although there are also some bold vendors who just put their wares right there on the sidewalk. And here's like a velvet Gucci bag. It's actually extremely cute. The street vendors lay their bags on a big sheet so that they can pull up the corners and run away when they see the police coming. This is of course a legal. Anytime you're copying a brand, a trademark, a course, illegal. Anytime you're copying a brand, a trademark, a logo,

you're breaking the law. A logo is protectable by law. That's true of any two-dimensional image or drawing or pattern or print. So if the print is actually original to you, it's not in the public domain. It's like a two-dimensional image. You can protect that.

This is, in part, why many luxury brands started to pattern their logos all over their handbags in the first place. It's like watermarking an image to try to protect it. But like any illegal trade, these knockoffs don't exist in a bubble. Taurus flocked to Canal Street from all over the world to buy these knockoff handbags, knowing full well they are knockoffs.

Like if these shoppers really needed handbags, they could get high quality unbranded ones for the same price somewhere else. They come to Canal Street for these powerful symbols. Dapper Dan witnessed the power of these symbols on that fateful day back in the 80s. When that one hustler in Harlem walled into his shop with that vinyl Louis Vuitton pouch, and everyone gathered around the little bag transfixed. That's when Dapper Dan thought, Okay, if they had fascinating with those symbols, how about if I have them walking around looking like that bag?

Dapper Dan didn't want to take designer bags and replicate them. I wanted to do something nobody else was even thought of. I got to figure out how to transform them symbols into garments. Dapper Dan wanted to take these symbols. The logos of this old luggage company who at that point really only made bags and he wanted to print them on clothing. I just started teaching myself, reading and going to trade chills,

and so I taught myself everything. And Dapper Dan started to print Louis Vuitton logos on things that Louis Vuitton could have never dreamt of. Leather track suits, skin tight leather dresses, long bulletproof leather trench coats, full leather car interiors, as well some totally original designs. Like Dabrdan created this particularly distinctive jacket with a black fur torso and huge puffy leather balloon sleeves covered in LVs. And he started using the logos of other legacy luxury brands and fancy cars and religious

totems. I made these buttocks of Jack as 30 years ago with the car logo's on them. His work was all festooned with symbols and it was all very expensive. Very expensive stuff. Very expensive stuff. Something about affordability leads to fashion demise. Even though he embossed his clothes with the marks of Gucci and Fendi and Louis,

that was the only part of them that was actually a knockoff. Because nothing like these designs had ever existed before. Dapper Dan invented a genre. He is the creator of high-end hip-hop fashion. You come up with this idea, and this twist, and it becomes you. And so that's how I develop.

I had to show them these brands that I could do and interpret them for my community, better than make it ever think of. All around him, MCs were remixing pop music into beats, and Dapper Dan was remixing established luxury brands, known symbols, into something entirely new. Dapper Dan is one of the reasons Logo Mania took off in the 80s. He was taking these brands away from their expected homes, on luggage or cars, and putting them all over bodies. If you look at old pictures of Missy Elliott or L.O. Cool J on YoMTV wraps, they're wearing

leather track suits covered with Gucci and Fendi logos, and those were not made by Gucci and Fendi. These designs were all original to Dapper Dan. People start seeing the outfits and starting seeing the wrappers without fit and they start going to ask Gucci, this I want them when I'm sober or I can't more and I want them when I'm so LL Cool J. That's what I definitely people start seeing.

Oh, y'all did make this, it's coming from somewhere else. As Dapper Dan's clients spread out into the mainstream, as hip hop grew, the big fashion houses started to take notice of Dapper Dan and his trademark infringement. It started quietly at first, with covert agents visiting Dan's Harlem shop. They have to buy an agonement as evidence, take it to the courts,

and the courts would grant them cease and desist order. But that for Dan did not cease nor desist. They don't want us looking like them. Touching their symbols. They send the marshes and they had the race to confiscate anything with their trademark on it. The federal marshals marched into dance shop with garbage bags. They came in waves. Gucci. Proud at. Fendi. And the marshals carted off thousands of dollars worth of dapper dance, custom work, and his equipment.

They kept raiding me and raiding me. How do I overcome this? How do I get around this? Why weren't you tempted to stop? Why wouldn't I stop? Yeah. Why should I stop? I didn't see no't you tempted to stop? Why were you not stop? Yeah. Why should I so? I didn't see no reason for me to stop. But weren't you scared about your business? Because I did. I mean, let's go back. I come from the poor

stable in Harlem. All I know is the system constantly stepping on me, stepping on me, stepping on us. You know? So it's like you had to learn to step back, figure out ways to navigate this system. That's the way I looked at it. It's another obstacle. Let's deal with it. Dapper Dan always knew what he was doing was illegal. Always. But he'd hang out with the law before in much more serious ways. He was used to hustling. So when the luxury brands came after Dan, he just found another way to go on.

So I go on the ground. So what did that look like? That was hell. But it was necessary. Dapper Dan kept selling his work the way he used to sell his stolen clothes out of his car. He lived as a nomad. I went on the ground I had to make clothes and I would hit every black city from here to

Chicago. Then come back and hit every black city from here to Atlanta. And that's sustained me for 20 years. 20 years away from the eyes of Gucci and Prada and all the major brands you would expect to get upset about trademark infringement and call in the federal marshals. The law was pretty cut and dry. As our expert, Professor Rusty Alla said, it's like a two-dimensional image. You can protect that.

It seems pretty simple. But that's not how the law truly functions. When I think of a knockoff, I think of the imitation bags on Canal Street, I think of small vendors stealing the trademarks of huge companies. But big, wealthy, multinational fashion companies, knockoff small designers all the time, all the time. So the point where most of us might not realize we're buying knockoffs at all.

When I first saw that I was like, you know, maybe it was a mistake. And then, maybe a mistake. Maybe I made a mistake in thinking that it was like too similar. You know, I was like, maybe they don't know. This is Tuesday, Basson. She's an illustrator. And that's how she got into the world of clothing.

I started making clothes when I moved to LA. At the time, I had put out a theme called Ugly Girl Gang, and the three girls on the front cover I had drawn were wearing satin jackets. And on the back of their satin jackets are hearts that say mixed emotions club. So many people would be like, oh, I would wear that jacket. And being in LA and being around clothing manufacturing, Mixed Emotions Club. So many people would be like, oh, I would wear that jacket. And being in LA and being around clothing manufacturing, I was like, maybe I can make that jacket.

Tuesday made her first bomber jacket in 2015. It looked exactly like the one her character and her scene is wearing. It satin with a big heart across the back that says, mixed Emotions Club. It sold out, and I made some more. Tuesday went on to design an entire line of pins and patches and accessories and clothes

in a wide range of sizes. A lot of her illustrations are integrated into her clothing. So it's an extremely personal thing, which is why it was almost painful in 2016. When the fast-fashion behemoth Zara sold a line of designs that looked which is why it was almost painful in 2016. When the fast fashion behemoth Zara sold a line of designs that looked exactly like Tuesdays. It was my entire catalog of goods on their products,

on various products. Sure, it's patches, everything. This is illegal, especially since Tuesday had already registered her images. I am somewhat proactive about being litigious and already had portrayed Mark's on most of the designs. That's so smart. Yeah. So Tuesday did what you're supposed to do.

She issued a cease and desist notice. I think the scariest thing about it is that in detects the parent company of Zara is the largest fast-facifation company in the world. Their founder, Amansi Ortega, at one point was actually the sixth wealthiest man on Earth. Accusing the largest brand in the world, right, largest fast-fashion brand in the world, of stealing my intellectual property is scary.

It's um, it's terrifying. In this David and Goliath story, Tuesday summoned all her courage and threw a stone at the giant. And Goliath didn't flinch. He barely even noticed. And got a letterback that it basically said like, we're big, you're little, like what do you want to do about it?

Nobody knows about who you are. When most people bought those Tuesday knockoffs from Zara, they had no idea they were knockoffs at all to fight for her own integrity. Tuesday filed suit against Intertex. Having a lawsuit is not very fun. Also, the legal costs mean nothing to Zara. To a small designer, it's considerable.

Good lawyers are so expensive. I mean bad lawyers are so expensive, you know. It's just exhausting to have to consistently defend what is legally yours. Tuesday's lawsuit eventually ended. God, last year. Yeah, so for years, it went on. The only thing Tuesday can legally say about the situation now is that it was resolved to their mutual satisfaction. Antichlomactic, I know. But the kicker is, it's not like Tuesday can relax now. Well, and absolutely it is happening again, actually, Bershka, another company

by Intatex who owns Zara, has infringed on one of the same designs. No way. Yeah. On a hat was a little heart. And inside it said, mixed emotions club. It's frustrating and it's exhausting. But I also feel like if I don't continue to defend my brand and defend my intellectual

property, this will continue happening to me. And it will happen to other people too. This happens all the time, all the time. Everyone working as a designer knows it. To the point where it's nearly unavoidable. In theory, the rules around trademark are supposed to be a bit of a trade-off. Yes, these laws might prevent independent designers like Dapper Dan from remixing other people's images, but these laws are also supposed to protect designers like Tuesday from having their original images ripped off.

And these stopgaps just aren't working. The bigger, wealthier party always seems to win. It's devastating for the little designer on either side of the law. Tuesday gets caught in litigation for years and years, and Dapper Dan has to go underground for decades. But that was my reaction to the opposition that I encountered. Not to get mad because they read it me, okay? This is what y'all do. decades. After 20 years underground, driving across all the major black cities in America, something really unexpected thrust Aberdeen back into the spotlight. It was May of 2017,

when Gucci sent a jacket down the runway for their cruise collection. It was a very distinctive jacket with a black fur torso and huge puffy leather balloon sleeves covered in jeans. This jacket looked almost exactly like a design Dan made back in the 80s. Really like identical. back in the 80s. Really like identical. If you look at the images of Dapper Dan's original and Gucci's version of the jacket, Gucci very obviously indirectly knocked him off. A hundred percent definitely. And unlike what Dapper Dan had been doing, Gucci wasn't remixing something old into something new. They just made an exact replica. And while Gucci could call the federal marshals on Dapper Dan, Dapper Dan didn't have that option. And it was

not because Gucci is big and Dapper Dan is small. It's because what Gucci did is perfectly legal. The design in the American system is fully copyable. Gucci wasn't copying a two-dimensional image. It wasn't a logo or a pattern. They were copying the design of the garment, the shape and the cut and the material. And you can totally just do that. The American fashion industry is very, very successful.

It makes a lot of money. It's worldwide in its reach. It's done very well over the last few decades. And yet the core idea, the design, can be copied by anyone. And it is copied by anyone. If you come up with a cool sleeve or a really different looking collar, you have no claim to it in the American copyright system. If you come up with something that's useful or technologically innovative,

like maybe it's a new kind of sweat-wicking fabric, maybe you could get a patent. In theory, like a unique kind of toggle or it could be patented. You know, it has to be non-obvious and novel as a bunch of it. It's a much higher hurdle to get a patent. But otherwise, no. All designs are fair game. The argument for this lack of regulation is that it keeps the fashion cycle churning.

After all, a trend means a thing that everyone is copying. New styles proliferate and spread and we all go out shopping and new styles proliferate and spread and we all go out shopping and new styles proliferate and spread and we all go out shopping and new styles proliferate and spread and we all go out shopping. Yes, so what copying does is enable the fashion cycle, so the cycle of something coming into fashion and going out. It enables that to move more quickly. Cala Rostiala and his co-author Chris Sprigman make this argument in their book, The Knock-Off Economy. In fashion, everyone copies each other all the time because the clothing industry runs on a fuel concocted of desire and trend proliferation. You might buy a new phone

every few years because the technology improves, but shirts generally don't get better at shirting. You consume as your taste changes, and designers have to appeal to what you like and what style is in. And so they steal from each other. Sometimes people take the view of like, you know, hopping as they're on some of success. And it's a good thing, or it's part of the ether, we just let it happen.

It's a little easier when you're a really big company to do that. When you're a small firm, it's a little tougher. Every couple of years, new legislation is brought forward to make American fashion law more strict, and it always falls through. And Professor Astiala argues that the reason is, fashion copyright is a double-edged sword. If you tighten up the rules to protect independent designers, you also tighten up the rules to protect major fashion houses, who stand to gain far more than they have to lose.

He argues that if fashion copyright was written more strictly and or enforced more heavily, it could have odd cultural ripple effects. Well, this is really an idea that I don't want to claim. It's a colleague of ours at NYU, Barton, to claim it's a colleague of ours at NYU, Barton, BB who really first talked about this. But some shorty codes in the past dictated who could wear what, and only certain classes of people could wear certain clothing. And stricter fashion law could function like modern sanctuary codes in a world with much stricter fashion copyright.

If you wanted to wear something new and cool or trendy right now, you couldn't unless you wanted to wear something new and cool or trendy right now, you couldn't. Unless you wanted to pay hundreds of dollars for the authentic trend-setting designer piece. Even if you made your own version, if you sowed a particular kind of dress or blouse inspired by something you saw on Instagram, you could be sued for infringement. And so one of the great things about the freedom to copy that we currently have, is it enables everyone to wear designs. So if a really popular design comes out of, let's say, product at a very high price point, the average person, let alone a poor person, could never afford it.

But the ability to knock off the design means that they too can wear that design and they have access to it. Although, let's not take a democracy of goods as an actual form of democracy, you know our world is already fractured into tears. People who take the bus and people who take a lift, first class, business class, and extra legroom. Those who can actually afford a $2,000 bag and those who buy them on Canal Street. The designers who are big enough to protect their work and those who aren't.

So were you upset when you saw them using your... No, I expect that. I never even to this day. I never expect people to play for you. Dabberdan himself had grown accustomed to injustice. But as soon as photos of Gucci's jacket hit the internet, black Twitter was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like Twitter hit? I said, wow, is that powerful? I never had a voice before. The online fashion world was outraged. People who remembered the jacket dredged it up again. And Dapper Dan was back on everyone's lips for the first time in decades.

And then all the social media started hitting and people came for me with where all this fashion ideas came from. A torrent of internet outrage was directed towards Gucci for copying Dapper Dan. And so Gucci did something very, very smart. They reached out to Dapper Dan only a few months later in December of 2017. And they offered Dan a position as a designer, but with complete and absolute autonomy. That's unheard of, right? Now Dapper Dan is doing exactly what he did before. Still experimenting and remixing and making very expensive custom garments, except now he

can only use Gucci symbols. And his Atelier in Harlem has a little Gucci sign out in front. So the big guy still kind of wins, but they've let Dapper Dan into the club. Because Dapper Dan is one of the most influential minds of the 20th century. He's a success story. He's a name. In other words, he's a brand. So of course, people are knocking him off.

Vindas run up to me and show me they knock off that but they did personally. Wait really? Yes. No way. Yes way. Yes way. What do you think when you see that? What should I think?

What should I say? Look, I'm one guy. Gucci's a multinational corporation, Fendi's and all these multinational corporations. They can't stop. It is something that's going to happen. You know what I'm saying? You just let it be. Let it be of course. There's a portrait painted on the things we love.

Articles of Interest was written and performed by Avery Trouffleman, edited by Chris Baroube with additional editing by Emmett Fitzgerald, scored by Ray Royal, fact checked by Tom Colligan with additional fact checking by Graham Haysha. Mix and tech production by Sharif Yusef with additional mixing by Catherine Rae Mondo and Sean Rial. Our opening and closing songs are by Sassami, special thanks this episode to Chris Sprigman and Ariel Alaya, Insight support and edits from the whole 99PI team, including Joe Rosenberg, Vivian Le, Abby Madan, Kurt Colstead, Delaney Hall, and Katie Mingle.

And Roman Mars is the real McCoy of this whole series. I'm trying to paint in the things we love. So most of us can't afford an entire designer outfit. So you might buy some quote unquote cheaper accessories from the same brand, like a handbag or sunglasses. But the most accessible way to a brand is probably a bottle of perfume. Because it's very, very difficult for most people to buy a $2,000 pair of shoes.

Almost everybody can afford an $85 bottle of perfume. Chandler Burr is the author of the perfect scent and the former perfume critic for the New York Times. Designers and fashion labels realized that they could create these things and they would be the perfect emblem of the brand where they didn't have to lower their prices of their dresses and their shoes and all that other stuff, but they could have a piece

of the brand that was accessible to a mass audience. Perfume is a massive industry. Perfume is the most efficient machine ever created in the history of the world for turning brand and fame into cash. It is intimate, you wear it on your skin, you know, and it's more intimate than clothing even. It's associated with a brand or with a famous person. There isn't intimacy there.

But it's not like these brands or famous people are mixing their signature sense themselves. Your next article of interest is perfume. Your next article of interest is perfume.