[font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Darling, you look so 1973...[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
Nicolas Ghesquière is considered to be one of today's most original fashion designers. So when he confessed to directly copying a design from the 70s, the fashion world was shocked. But is he alone? Charlie Porter on how designers borrow heavily from the past
[/font]Charlie Porter
[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Wednesday April 10, 2002
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Nicolas Ghesquière's spring/summer collection for Balenciaga in Paris last October had everyone thinking that they were seeing some of the most original creations of the season. The 32-year-old French designer, who has turned the venerable house of Balenciaga into one of the hippest labels in fashion, sent out a series of elaborately patchworked outfits made from shapes that looked like kidney beans melted by Salvador Dali. Although virtually unwearable, the delicately-constructed pieces helped to fuel fashion's current obsession with all things hand-made. But there is a problem - it seems that Ghesquière did not come up with the starkly modern design at all. The patchwork outfits were a direct copy of a top made in 1973 by Kaisik Wong, an obscure San Francisco-based designer who died in 1996. And Ghesquière admits the crime.
Catwalk copying is nothing new, especially on the high street. Right now at Karen Millen you can find gold trousers remarkably similar to those at Prada, while Marks & Spencer are very proud of its animal-print kaftans which echo the ones shown at Yves Saint Laurent. These cheaper copies are usually seen as the sincerest form of flattery, proving that the brand being mimicked is highly desired by the public. But when Ghesquière confirmed the gossip about his designs - started two weeks ago on the fashion gossip website Chic Happens - it was seen as bursting the bubble about designers and how they define the word "inspiration". The clothes sold by labels such as Balenciaga are so good, you want them to be completely original. Often, it seems, they are not.
"I'm very flattered that people are looking at my sources of inspiration," Ghesquière told the New York Times when asked about the copying. Revealing that he saw his design technique as similar to that of sampling in the music industry, he stated: "This is how I work. I've always said I'm looking at vintage clothes." The designer admitted that an assistant had found a picture of the top in a fashion book called Native Funk & Flash, and assumed that the outfit was merely a piece of theatrical costume. Wong, who was a friend of the writer Tom Wolfe, is said to have worked free-form with a pair of scissors in each hand, taking inspiration as it came to him.
Ghesquière, on the other hand, is a designer rightly celebrated for his uncompromisingly chic clothing that has an unexpected commercial clout. Until his appointment as chief designer in 1997, Balenciaga had become an irrelevant fashion label, failing to recapture the glory that its founder, Cristobal Balenciaga, had enjoyed in the 50s. Ghesquière brought an edgy cool to the house, making its tight trousers and battered-looking handbags bestsellers, and last summer, Gucci Group bought the little-known label to raise its profile. Anna Wintour threw an exclusive dinner party for Ghesquière, with Sarah Jessica Parker as the guest of honour; Kate Moss caused a stir when she wore a highly conceptual Balenciaga dress to the party for Mario Testino's exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; and Jennifer Connelly was in Balenciaga when she accepted her Academy Award for best supporting actress last month. Ghesquière is building the sort of reputation that doesn't need accusations of plagiarism.
"Given that there is so little innovation around, and Ghesquière has one of the few distinctive sensibilities, it is depressing that he has been quite so derivative," says Alice Rawsthorn, director of the Design Museum in London. "But it's not as though anyone could be labouring under any illusions that other designers don't do it." Rawsthorn points to Marc Jacobs and Miuccia Prada as designers who have admitted to taking strong inspiration from archives and vintage stores. "Fashion is trapped at the moment in retro recycling," she continues. "I'm in my 40s and I'm being sold recycled designs from the first time around. Obviously the 60s and 70s were about moving forward and innovation, and it's absolutely impossible for designers to keep that momentum up."
Designers have always looked to the past for inspiration; most famously, Christian Dior based his landmark New Look collection on memories of his mother, but in those days the past was not so minutely archived by the media and he could pass the belle époque off as his own. After the technical and social advances of the mid-20th century spurred designers to create looks that seemed wholly new, the current clutch of fashion labels find it hard to take inspiration from anywhere but the past. Designers and their stylists scour flea markets and charity shops in the hope of finding clothes that they can turn into their own. Once the pattern has been copied, nipped and tucked to the label's particular style, and the garment remade in modern fabrics, the designer has a piece with the vintage feel that is still highly sought after by big-spending fashion consumers.
Usually, the second-hand outfits that provide such strong inspiration are unknown and virtually impossible to trace. But, like Ghesquière, occasionally designers are found out. In 1994, Yves Saint Laurent successfully sued Ralph Lauren over a tuxedo dress originally designed by the former in 1970. Lauren was found guilty of unfair competition and counterfeiting. But although Ghesquière has admitted to it, no action will be taken over the Balenciaga copy, and fashion insiders believe that Ghesquière's design indiscretion will not actually do his label any harm.
"Ghesquière has credibility as a designer above and beyond one close vintage clone," says Rawsthorn. Although the patchwork pieces were the most eye-catching garments in the collection, it is the baggy combats worn with them that have caused the biggest frenzy in stores. Indeed, even if you wanted a copy of Wong's design, it is virtually impossible to buy one of the patchwork tops, since the £5,000 pieces were made mainly for the catwalk show, and not for mass production. Go to the Balenciaga section in Harvey Nichols and you'll see racks of beautifully tailored trousers, not patchwork and tassels. The skinny, rich women who are able to both fit into and afford his clothes know that Ghesquière's cutting skills are unique, even if his ideas have proven to be otherwise.
That's like hearing Dean & Dan Caten speak out against tasteless clothing.
