Okay, I've been reading Engadget for a long time, but I've registered today just to set some perspective.
Her theory is not entirely right, and not entirely correct. Since I think I'm probably the only fashion designer from Engadget's readership, I'll chip in.
I'll take a modern smart phone as an example. There are numerous manufacturers of mobile devices now, and they produce a good amount of different models of phones each. Yet for most of the time, switched off, they look pretty much the same. It's a plastic/alu bar, with some standard buttons on and a screen, an earpiece, a microphone, and a camera. They all have home buttons, some have additional buttons, they all have camera lens at the back, all have the screen and look pretty much alike if not discussing the details - iPhone, HTC phones, LG and Motorola phones, they're all bars with screens and a bit of buttons.
So basically, that's the way fashion industry looks at things, e.g. these are all different jackets, from different fabrics, with different details and cut, but essentially, they are the same form & function more or less (excluding some conceptual design).
So in that sense, these IS NO DIFFERENCE between the logic of, say IT industry here, and fashion industry. Therefore her argument has little point.
Our screens are all rectangles with glass, our phones are bars, our earpieces are... earpieces, our printers are boxes with paper in them, our scanners our flatbeds with glass on top, our cameras are little rectangles with buttons and lenses, pretty much EVERYTHING is more or less "inspired" by other designs, or actually, by the heritage of electronics.
The devil, however, is in the details. How exactly things operate, how exactly they function. This is what makes the difference. And in that respect, fashion industry is actually the same - we patent textile innovations, textile treatments, create new fibers, new materials. Best well-known examples would be DuPont, Gore-Tex and Lycra. If you buy a pair of socks that has Lycra in them, the manufacturer paid fees to use it those socks. If there are treatments that make textile fireproof/waterproof/odor proof - someone has a patent o it. And even non-utilitarian textile, like fabrics that Issey Miyake develops in his fashion house and uses, his famous pleats - those are trademarks.
So I hope that clears things up a bit. Also, she's way too annoying and positive about high street knock-offs. There is an upside, of course, but there are also numerous and serious downsides, which I am not going to elaborate upon, unless someone is really interested. Sufficient to say, she doesn't know squat about what she's talking about, and all the research that she's put into this presentation was probably done on an evening before, while readying to go to bed.
PS. Ingus, be a darling, and stop talking. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. If your POS cargo trousers made by Indian children for $1 were put together by 1 designer, 2 assistants and 2 coordinators, that doesn't mean that this is how it's supposed to be made. It's like saying "OMG DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY RESOURCES YOU NEED TO CREATE A FART APP FOR APPSTORE??!!". So don't embarrass yourself, keep quiet.
PPS. Engadget team, it's really cool that you've start this Alt project, makes Engadget stand head above the rest tech blogs and brings some wider audience, themes and questions to the table. Well done.
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Okay, I've been reading Engadget for a long time, but I've registered today just to set some perspective.
Her theory is not entirely right, and not entirely correct. Since I think I'm probably the only fashion designer from Engadget's readership, I'll chip in.
I'll take a modern smart phone as an example. There are numerous manufacturers of mobile devices now, and they produce a good amount of different models of phones each. Yet for most of the time, switched off, they look pretty much the same. It's a plastic/alu bar, with some standard buttons on and a screen, an earpiece, a microphone, and a camera. They all have home buttons, some have additional buttons, they all have camera lens at the back, all have the screen and look pretty much alike if not discussing the details - iPhone, HTC phones, LG and Motorola phones, they're all bars with screens and a bit of buttons.
So basically, that's the way fashion industry looks at things, e.g. these are all different jackets, from different fabrics, with different details and cut, but essentially, they are the same form & function more or less (excluding some conceptual design).
So in that sense, these IS NO DIFFERENCE between the logic of, say IT industry here, and fashion industry. Therefore her argument has little point.
Our screens are all rectangles with glass, our phones are bars, our earpieces are... earpieces, our printers are boxes with paper in them, our scanners our flatbeds with glass on top, our cameras are little rectangles with buttons and lenses, pretty much EVERYTHING is more or less "inspired" by other designs, or actually, by the heritage of electronics.
The devil, however, is in the details. How exactly things operate, how exactly they function. This is what makes the difference. And in that respect, fashion industry is actually the same - we patent textile innovations, textile treatments, create new fibers, new materials. Best well-known examples would be DuPont, Gore-Tex and Lycra. If you buy a pair of socks that has Lycra in them, the manufacturer paid fees to use it those socks. If there are treatments that make textile fireproof/waterproof/odor proof - someone has a patent o it. And even non-utilitarian textile, like fabrics that Issey Miyake develops in his fashion house and uses, his famous pleats - those are trademarks.
So I hope that clears things up a bit. Also, she's way too annoying and positive about high street knock-offs. There is an upside, of course, but there are also numerous and serious downsides, which I am not going to elaborate upon, unless someone is really interested. Sufficient to say, she doesn't know squat about what she's talking about, and all the research that she's put into this presentation was probably done on an evening before, while readying to go to bed.
PS. Ingus, be a darling, and stop talking. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. If your POS cargo trousers made by Indian children for $1 were put together by 1 designer, 2 assistants and 2 coordinators, that doesn't mean that this is how it's supposed to be made. It's like saying "OMG DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY RESOURCES YOU NEED TO CREATE A FART APP FOR APPSTORE??!!". So don't embarrass yourself, keep quiet.
PPS. Engadget team, it's really cool that you've start this Alt project, makes Engadget stand head above the rest tech blogs and brings some wider audience, themes and questions to the table. Well done.