Professor Susan Scafidi was quoted in the Fordham Observer about the field of fashion law and how she established the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School.
Scafidi’s tenure committee advised her to halt these research questions. “[They] said, ‘You can’t write about fashion. It’s too girly. It’s too frivolous. No one will take you seriously.’ But I said, ‘It’s a multibillion—now it’s a trillion—dollar industry, and this is an interesting theoretical question.’”
Scafidi paused her research questions, writing instead about cultural creativity, touching upon cuisine, dance and music. “But once I got tenure, I went straight back to fashion,” she explained. “About that time I came to Fordham…and I very quickly realized that it was not just fashion that was unusual with respect to intellectual property questions, but there were all sorts of legal questions throughout the fashion industry, and while obviously designers and fashion houses have always consulted lawyers, there was no field of fashion law.”
