Fall 2014: Déjà vu, Balenciaga

Fall 2014 has been an interesting season thus far, and for me this is primarily due to the apparent 'references' from a variety of designers' past collections. In this post I will focus on the 2014 obsession with the house of Balenciaga under the tutelage of director Nicolas Ghesquiere.

It started in New York with Prabal Gurung's collection. See the boldly draped black and white capped sleeved tops and the tight grey knit, long sleeved jerseys paired with gathered skirts from Gurung; there is no denying 'inspiration' from Balenciaga's Fall 2008 collection.

Yesterday in Milan, Fay presented a bold collection which I believe pays more than just homage to Balenciaga's Fall 2011 collection. What fashionita could forget Balenciaga's super large hounds-tooth jackets? Well, in case we did, Fay is reminding us (?). Fay even mimicked the styling of the oxford shoes as well as the black & white  AND black & grey hounds-tooth print  jackets with black sleeves displayed in the Balenciaga collection.

Not that Nicolas Ghesquiere isn't cut from the same cloth, so to speak, as far as  taking inspiration to the extreme. In his Spring 2002 show he did admit to lifting a key look from Kaisik Wong, a brilliant costume designer of the 70s.

vest by Kaisik Wong

And Ghesquiere did it again in his 2010 resort collection where he clearly must have loved the groovy "parrot jacket" by East West Musical Instruments:

Is there a difference between "taking inspiration" and flat-out copying? When do references become almost criminal? Yves Saint Laurent won a lawsuit against Ralph Lauren in 1994 for 'stealing' the design of YSL's famous tuxedo dress from 1966 (Read more from the New York Times here).

We all seem to recognize the wrongfulness of mass-manufactured fakes in the fashion world such as handbags, sunglasses, perfumes and shoes - but somehow high fashion designers seem to get away with letting their 'inspiration get the best of them'.