Whose piping is it anyway?

Rathore compares his case to a luxury car-maker copyrighting its detailing and style. “Anybody can make a car but you can’t copy its interiors to the T. Similarly,the bandhgala in itself is not subject to copyright but the piping and the print inside the collar,the inner design of the jacket and the Hindi label of the Raghavendra Rathore bandhgala are all covered under the copyright,” he says. This move is also meant to stop plagiarism of his designs. “I have corporatised my company and I have to promote my core product (read — bandhgalas and breeches) the right way. So when I launched my Mumbai store at the Taj Mahal hotel last month,I decided to go ahead with the copyrights,” says Rathore. The designer believes that this will set a new precedent in an industry that has seen a fair share of the “copy-paste” culture.

Designer Shane Peacock,who was “struck by the resemblance” between his rosette creation and a rosette outfit by Manav Gangwani at a fashion week four years ago,also believes that copyrighting is the future. However,a lot of other designers do not agree. While Arjun Khanna concedes that both Indian and international fashion are victims of plagiarism,he doesn’t believe that copyrighting will solve the problem. “I have seen both Bollywood and TV actors wear my rip-offs. But,copyrighting may not help at all as people can work their way around it. For instance,the pocket of your creation may have been cut at a 45 degree angle,but a similar one with a 47 degree angle cut will escape the law,” says Khanna.

For Shantanu Mehra of Shantanu and Nikhil,copyrighting is a “cumbersome process”. “It’s a tricky road with too many legalities,so while one can copyright a print or certain other unique detail,the basic features can’t be marked as one’s own. The piping,for one,is used by all designers who make the bandhgala. So Rathore’s piping will have to have its own unique stamp to qualify for a copyright,” he says,adding that he doesn’t see himself go down that road. “We keep evolving so we are always coming up with modified versions of our own previous creations. This,in turn,dilutes the copyright,” he signs off.

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