Copying, Part Two: Kate and Topshop

The fashion world was awash in copyright scandal last week. Philip Green the Chairman of Arcadia Group and the man who hired Kate Moss to create a line for Topshop told the UK trade Retail Week, "Everything's copyrighted and I will sue." Topshop is also going to limit the number of pieces customers can buy in order to avoid seeing masses of them for sale on eBay.

I already pointed out that the clothes really only look good on Kate and that they're hardly original designs. Kate has told British Vogue that the collection was based on things she had in her closet, and more than journalists on both sides of the ocean have had fun finding the original pictures of Kate in the clothes she "designed." (Lisa Armstrong of the Times defends her with a gives us a play-by-play breakdown of the process.) Will any of the designers of the outfis she wore in the photos file suit? I hope not. Copying, or being inspired by something, is part of the game. Smart designers like Marc Jacobs take it as inevitable, call it flattery, and adapt by always being one step ahead with their next collections.

This Topshop collection is just the first step in Moss's move to become a brand. A perfume is said to be up next. But before she can go any further she she's decided to get her own logo. The designers of her font say it is a take off of one created by the art director of Harpers Bazaar from 1934 to 1958, Alexey Brodovitch. (More coyping!)

It's all just starting to look a little bit cheesy. I'm beginning to think that the Topshop collection, the logo and the perfume might be able to do for Kate what the cocaine scandal and Pete Doherty could not: Make her uncool. When she was dating Jefferson Hack, the editor of Another Magazine and founder of Dazed and Confused, he frequently said that he thought she would make a great stylist. Many of us were with Jefferson in hoping that Kate would become the next Grace Coddington, the much-loved fashion director at American Vogue. Coddington began life as a model but has made a much greater contribution to fashion through her work at Vogue.

If Kate loses her following, it will be Philip Green who will really pay the price. UK journalists say he's invested far more than the $3 million that's been reported into the Kate Moss brand and plans to use it as his launching pad into the US. (The Kate Moss collection will be available at Barneys from May 8.) Of course, the biggest loss to Topshop was the resignation of Jane Shepherdson, the much-loved fashion director who brought the brand to greatness and quit over the hiring of Kate.