Red Bottom,Red Face

Two weeks ago,the judge refused the injunction,believing that a designer could not trademark a colour. It was not the same as an insignia,as Louis Vuitton’s logo,or a pattern,as Burberry’s checks. But Post-It enjoys a patent on its yellow,and Tiffany’s on its blue boxes. A week ago,Louboutin lost the case. Interestingly,America’s Patent and Trademark Office granted Louboutin the trademark of a ‘Chinese red’ in 2008.

The YSL team argues that Louboutin was not the first to use red soles as he claims,Louis XIV had red-heeled dancing shoes and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz had ruby slippers with red bottoms too.

YSL’s company isn’t too off-base here,although a controversy of this sort would make the deceased designer,an inventive genius who married male-female tailoring in his clothes,turn in his grave. The red-heeled shoe was a mark of distinction in western societies since aristocrats began wearing them in 1600. Hans Christian Andersen used the red shoe as a symbol of vanity in the fairy tale,The Red Shoes. And Valentino has been producing red-heeled shoes since 1969 to go with his famous red gowns. (His shade of orange-tinged red is often called ‘Valentino red’).

Louboutin stands to lose business as it leads to customer confusion,but the upside is the free publicity the case has generated for the man who has never advertised. The battle has been followed by the fashion press and bloggers,but has also made it to mainstream newspapers.

Sadly,fashion makes it to the news pages only if it’s controversial: when a designer is depressed and kills himself (Alexander McQueen) or is a debauched alcoholic and gets sacked (John Galliano).

The Economist,a bible for global news and analysis,has dedicated almost a whole page to the Louboutin-YSL story. The Telegraph,The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post have followed it closely. Leading business magazine,Forbes,covered it with a headline that read ‘What’s So Special About Red-Soled Shoes?’

Fashion is still viewed as either controversial or frivolous in mainstream news. An Indian designer playing the global field isn’t relevant to the masses. When Prada made its stock market debut in Hong Kong,instead of Milan or Paris,The Economist gave it one paragraph. The missing story is that fashion moves where money moves and western capitals of fashion don’t fly anymore.

A story that magazines will never do for fear of losing advertisers is how each luxury label is outsourcing its manufacturing to cheaper countries. Luxury labels justified their price by selling themselves as artisanal brands are industry-made now and are even more expensive.

Barely nothing is manufactured in Europe and Britain anymore.

The biggest fashion story of our times is how trash-fash,as popularised by Zara,Primark,Topshop and H&M,is eating up our environment. Not only do they exploit poor labour,they also use up natural resources such as cotton and oil to make something that isn’t meant to last.

And that makes me see red more than anything else. namratanow@gmail.com