The History and Principles of American Copyright Protection for Fashion Design: On Originality

As discussed in the previous installment of this five-part series, A Strange Centennial, lawyers and non-lawyers alike have often parroted the refrain that U.S. copyright does not apply to articles of fashion design. The American legal system's actual treatment of fashion articles is far more nuanced. If pressed for an accurate generalization, one might reasonably state that certain components of fashion design are copyright-eligible, but even those elements tend to receive less consistent and robust protection than that accorded to most other types of "artistic" or "expressive" works under the law