ABSTRACT
Innovation in the fashion industry is complex, involving technological, managerial, and stylistic change. This chapter first examines the relation between innovations and intellectual property in the fashion industry. The inventors of the sewing machine formed the first patent pool of history in the United States in 1856, but it was in terms of design that fashion was, often, the fastest to innovate. Next, the chapter turns to the case of France, in order to see how the cluster of haute couture secured high authorship in design and managed to organize a perpetual renewal of forms, garnering media attention around the world. Third, the focus shifts to the Francophone colonial realm—in this case, the Belgian Congo—to see how intellectual property for fashionable designs was transported overseas. Fourth, the chapter examines how designers may have used the medium of fashion itself to offer critiques of intellectual property, and in this way have contributed to creating possibly the most challenging works of recent decades.
