Professor Susan Scafidi, founder and academic director of Fordham Law School’s Fashion Law Institute was quoted in a Daily Beast article about accusations of cultural appropriation and plagiarism against Carolina Herrera creative director, Wes Gordon.
The secretary’s letter was more than just the latest entry in the long, exhaustive database covering fashion houses accused of cultural appropriation.
Per The Guardian, Frausto went on to write, “This is a matter of ethical consideration that obliges us to speak out and bring an urgent issue to the UN’s sustainable development agenda: promoting inclusion and making those who are invisible visible.”
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“Anything that comes through the U.N. tends to be vague diplomatic and advisory,” Susan Scafidi, a lawyer and director of Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute, told The Daily Beast. “When intangible properties are copied, nothing is actually taken away from its owners, so it’s a little hard for the international community to wrap its mind around protections.”
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“More than likely, this would take the form of a treaty that countries were asked to sign and adhere to,” Scafidi suggested. (Surely, an administration that backs out of the Paris Accord might drag their feet at agreeing to a cultural appropriation ban.)