Why We Don't Need Fashion Police

Over at The New Republic, Kal Raustiala explains why Manolo and Giorgio aren't fussed about knockoffs:

In short, copying drives the fashion cycle…The hunger for design distinctiveness drives fashion lovers back into Barneys, Bergdorfs, and the boutiques on a regular (and ever-quickening) basis…Fashion's paradoxical relationship to piracy could be written off as a minor aberration (though the apparel industry in the U.S. alone is a $100 billion enterprise). Yet it illustrates a larger point about intellectual property: that intellectual property protection is not necessarily a precondition for innovation.