Véronique Pouillard

Design Piracy in the Fashion Industries of Paris and New York in the Interwar Years

During the Great Depression, counterfeiters of the newest styles posed a challenge to the high-fashion designers who dominated Parisian design. Meanwhile, New York, traditionally the destination of the first corporate buyers of Paris couture, became a potential contender for the role of fashion capital. Scrutiny of French and American laws reveals that strong national interests were at stake in the fashion business. In France, the law safeguarded copyrights of fashion design while, in the United States, legislators denied such protection to American fashion.

Keeping designs and brands authentic: the resurgence of the post-war French fashion business under the challenge of US mass production

This paper describes the strategies of the French fashion business to authenticate its designs and brands under the challenge of mass-produced ready-to-wear clothing by US manufacturers. It focuses on the 1950s as a pivotal moment in fashion history, as the older model of elite fashion ‘trickling down’ to the lower strata of garment production made way for a multiplicity of trendsetters and a democratisation of fashion. Starting from a situation in which New York-based manufacturers produced low-price copies of Parisian designs, the paper analyses the various strategies of French fashion producers to get control over the exploitation of their designs. As attempts to secure international copyright for fashion designs failed, Parisian designers brought out tie-in products and boutique lines and managed to shift the authenticity of their work from the design to the brand.

L’alta moda in Francia. Rotture e continuità fra le due guerre

This paper explores the situation of Paris haute couture firms during the interwar period, focusing on the strategies deployed to face the Economic Depression. It first examines the figures of exports and failures as potential indicators of the impact of the crisis. Then, the article addresses the responses of haute couture to the Depression, starting with the action of the couturiers federated in the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture parisienne. Strategies of peculiar actors are considered next, particularly the activities of Georges Aubert, a financier who arguably founded the first luxury group in France. Research results show that the mergers and acquisitions launched by Aubert were hardly successful, and met with opposition from the haute couture profession. The paper then explores the range of strategies available to haute couture firms, from the reduction of overhead costs to the development of tie-in products. Finally, the paper underlines that the interwar period was a time of experimentation for the haute couture industry, which was relatively resilient in times of contraction of the economy.

Christian Dior-New York: French Fashion in the Luxury US Market

Today the US dominates all other markets as far as luxury expenditures are concerned. As shown in the 2015 results published by specialized consultancy firm Bain, the USA is the largest market for the purchase of personal luxury goods, reaching 78.6 billion euros for that year. This sum is higher than the sum of the next four (Japan 20.1, China 17.9, Italy 17.3, and France 17.1). One of the explanations for this state of affairs is the status of New York as a fashion capital. New York is the city where most personal luxury goods are sold in the world, with a sum of 27 billion euros sold in 2015. The USA has become in recent years the largest luxury market in the world, and is still ahead of the Asian countries (D’Arpizio et al. 2015, pp. 2, 9–10, 11).

La puissance du modèle américain : Les agences publicitaires dans la Belgique de l'entre-deux-guerres

ResumeDans la Belgique de l’entre-deux-guerres, la publicite, qui devient progressivement une activite economique a part entiere, est vue par les professionnels eux-memes comme une profession americaine. L’influence francaise n’est pourtant pas en reste. Lorsque la crise economique survient, un retour a l’identite nationale belge, mais aussi un interet croissant pour le savoir-faire francais apparaissent, aux yeux de certains, comme des alternatives potentielles a l’americanisation croissante du secteur publicitaire.