ADVANCED STYLE: ARI SETH COHEN NEEDS YOUR HELP

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

"Queen of Accessories" is one of the ladies featured on Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style blog 

In a world with no shortage of street style blogs, Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style stands out as being properly unique, inspirational and unfalteringly fabulous. Why? Because his subjects are the grande dames of the world- they are fearless and confident dressers and utterly defy any of the fading into the background stdreotypes often associated with the more mature members of the population. No matter what your age, this is a site which will always bring a smile to your face and fresh ideas to the way you think about your style.

Ari's book, released this week (image from advancedstyle.blogspot.co.uk)

This week, Cohen has released a book based on his blog. On 7th June, Ari will be in London where the one and only Mary Portas will host the UK launch party at her store in House of Fraser on Oxford Street. We were excited to hear word that an Advanced Style film is also in the offing- it looks set to be the much craved sort-of-sequel to the brilliant Bill Cunningham documentary. However, Ari and his filmmaker friend Lina Plioplyte need your help to finish the documentary they've spent two years creating. They've taken to Kickstarter, the site where creative projects can showcase to attract funding, because they need our help to get the film through the last stages of production. Here at FEAL, we believe it would be a travesty for the footage Ari and Lina have gathered to go unshared so we urge you to give a few spare pennies towards the Advanced Style piggy bank. In return, you'll get what we're sure will be a highly entertaining and inspiring look at the women we probably all aspire to become one day.

GREAT ADVANCED STYLE QUOTES:

"Women see me and they say, 'I want to dress a little more fun!'"

"You can break the rules once in a while, I'm not ready for a convent"

"Young women, you're going to be an old woman some day, don't worry about it!"

Look at Ari and Lina's taster....

HAS THE HIGH STREET COPYING OF CATWALK DESIGNERS WORK GOT OUT OF HAND?

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

The latest press release email from Red Hot PR, representing Goddiva

Yesterday, a press release email pinged into the Fashion Editor at Large in-box. Its title? 'Gucci Copies.' Amazingly, the fashion company in question, Goddiva, has instructed its PR company to send out press releases promoting the fact it is copying dresses from the current Gucci collection; dresses that are in the shop right now. Goddiva even shares with us the catwalk shots of the dresses they are copying in the release!  Goddiva would do well to read up on how litigious Gucci is. Only this week it was awarded $4.7 million from Guess over infringement of its G and red/green stripe trademarks, and it is stepping up its brand protection around the world as a result.

This type of email - and I get a lot of them - makes my blood boil. Bethan, Fashion Junior at Large, has even seen me pick up the phone to some PR companies to question them for the sending out of such emails. I know it sounds a bit batty, but really - they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. It especially annoys me when the copying involves ripping-off young British and international designers who don't have the funds to hire a lawyer to defend their Intellectual Property rights.

What you see above is a blatant example of how rampant the copying of fashion designers work at high street level has become. Crazier still the brands doing it actually promote the fact. Copying is against the law. Fashion designers and brands can - and do as we see from Gucci's case this week- successfully sue for this kind of thing. Elsewhere on the high street designers' original work is being tacitly raped and pillaged and passed off as the work of the retailer - and to my mind it is getting worse by the week.

I do understand that the high street takes inspiration from catwalk and street trends for their fashion offerings, its the nature of the beast; everyone from Marc Jacobs to Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga takes inspiration from something, but really it has gone too far. Which is why I am glad the young law American law student Julie Zerbo of the fashion blog Fashion Law, which was recently covered by the Wall Street Journal, is succeeding in highlighting the problem. A few weeks ago Zerbo brought to attention a Chanel bangle, which looked very similar to one already on the record as being by young NYC based jeweller Pamela Love. After her post was picked up by Fashionista.com, Chanel withdrew the bracelet with immediate effect. It was an elegant way around a problem senior designers at Chanel  probably didn't even know they had. Chanel prides itself on originality.

Last week a friend of mine who is also an editor sent me a couple of Blackberry-Cam shots of items that looked very familiar...

Seen at Karen Millen

Have you met your twin? Erdem Resort 2012 on Net-a-Porter. In fact if you type "Erdem blue lace dress" into Google, the third thing that comes up is "Erdem blue lace dress copy" and the listing takes you to Kate Middleton related sites..

Seen at Marks and Spencer

Hmm..looks familiar. Jonathan Saunders SS12 collection (photo: Catwalking.com)

Have you seen any blatant copies out there? What do you think?