As I was going through some of my design friend Christian Francis Roth’s old clips, I came across a 1991 New York Times column that included an item on Christian and other designers making costumes for Cirque du Soleil.
Christian, back in the day.
But it was the story about graphic designer Massimo Vignelli‘s launch of a menswear line that really grabbed my attention. As you may have read on any number of blogs from around the world, the super-viral Francis subway map dress is an homage to Vignelli’s New York City subway map of the 1970s.
The Francis subway map dress.
The dress was part of Christian’s 2009 Gangs of New York collection, which was inspired by gangs ranging from today’s Gossip Girl to the ones in the 1979 cult movie The Warriors. The subway map dress was, as Christian recently told the Village Voice, modeled on the subway map that appears in the opening sequence of The Warriors. Here’s the highlarious trailer for the movie.
Anyway, in that 1991 article, Vignelli told the New York Times, “The task of design is to solve problems. The task of fashion is to create problems.” I definitely felt like the subway map dress was living up to Vignelli’s statement when my parents sent me this photograph of a store window in downtown Manhattan.
I knew Christian hadn’t sold any dresses to that location and, indeed, it turned out that this was not his dress but a craptastically made knockoff. I’m not going to tell you the name of the store because (a) it doesn’t deserve the publicity and (b) after Christian had a word with the owners, that store isn’t carrying the fake “Francis” dress anymore.
Seeing the knockoff dress did bring up interesting issues since, as I said, Christian’s dress was inspired by Vignelli’s map. Everyone takes inspiration from everyone else in fashion. The Times said Vignelli’s menswear was influenced by the work of Andre Courreges, whom Vignelli admired. In the same Times column, Marc Jacobs — then the designer for Perry Ellis — said, “Anyone who tells you there’s anything new in fashion is lying. To quote the rappers, ‘Don’t believe the hype.'” (Here’s a bit of Marc’s Spring ’92 show)
The jewelry I design is nearly entirely inspired by historical figures, so I’m all for inspiration. But personally, I think inspiration that comes through research or admiration or passion is on a different level than “waiting till something becomes really popular online and then trying to copy it stitch by stitch.” Other people might disagree and say that there is no difference, but I don’t care much what other people say. My take on the difference between homages and knockoffs is the same as the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s take on the difference between art and porn: I know it when I see it!
UPDATED TO ADD: Click here for one of my favorite examples of art inspiring fashion, and fashion inspiring more fashion.
*A version of this post originally appeared on the Francis blog.