A Fashion Law Dinner Party with Fashion by Felicia

The exhibition, Giorgio Armani. Milano Per Amore at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy opened shortly after the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani’s death in September 2025. The exhibition was planned closely with Mr. Armani, in collaboration with the Giorgio Armani Foundation, and with Mr. Armani’s team. What is the origin story of this exhibition? How did it come about and what can oth...

This year’s Met Gala, with the dress code “Fashion is Art”, celebrated The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s exhibition “Costume Art”. As the official description notes , the “exhibition explores depictions of the dressed body across The Met’s vast collection, pairing garments with artworks to reveal the inherent relationship between clothing and the body.” The Met Gala isn't just a c...

20 years ago The Devil Wears Prada took us behind the scenes of the job a million girls would kill for. In this episode, looking forward to The Devil Wears Prada 2 , we focus on the job a million fashion law students would kill for - an in house counsel position at a major fashion brand. Ava Farshidi, the Global In-House Counsel at Marc Jacobs, shares how she landed a job in-house as a confident l...

On January 14, 2026, the fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni was cleared of criminal charges in Milan, Italy. The charges stemmed from what has been known as "Pandoro-gate", a campaign Ferragni created in collaboration with the Italian brand Balocco to promote an Italian Christmas cake in pink with Ferragni's logos. The specifics of the case were complex, and included a number of actors and forums,...

This holiday season you're like seeing celebrities and influencers collaborate with brands in an attempt to secure your purchase of the perfect branded holiday present. Brands take advantage of the celebrity connections and visual references we have in our consumer minds. The collaboration contract is the main legal document that cements the duties and obligations of both brands and talent for the...

New York Fashion Week, and Milan Fashion Week, spotlight new fashion collections but, also, new and recognized faces - the models who wear the clothing and help to create the glamorous lifestyle and aura that brands sell to their consumers. Not all modeling work is glamorous, however, especially if a model finds herself (or himself) at a disadvantage under the contract they have signed with their...

Have you ever wondered what it takes to put a deal together between a major fashion brand and a creative? How to prepare for a meeting with a luxury conglomerate as an emerging brand's executive? How to define value in fashion between creative outputs and financial bottom lines? In this summer Fashion Law Dinner Party, we speak with Christopher Rucker, a fashion industry executive with experience...

For fashion lawyers and scholars, the Met Gala is a dream hypothetical. This year, it was even more so thanks to the Gala's theme "Tailored to You" and the exhibition the Gala celebrated, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style . A celebration of black fashion heritage and black cultural heritage, the looks on the blue carpet raised legal questions. How does the Zoot Suit, a core part of the historic con...

What would dupes, authentic fakes, or conceptual fashion that riffs on trademarks and their messages be without the designers who make and create this fashion? In Part II of this Fashion Law Dinner Party we speak with Professor Abigail Glaum-Lathbury from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago about her Project G.U.C.C.I - the Genuine Unauthorized Clothing Clone Institute. “[A] visual primer i...

Dupes - fake or replica products that may or may not be legal to produce and sell- seem to be everywhere. Between the "Wirkin", Dupes.com, and beauty dupes, it seems that many consumers are eager to prioritize value by buying "fakes" over brand loyalty and, perhaps, brands' heritage. But, is there a hidden authenticity to buying a fake, a replica, a dupe, of a Birkin bag or similar fashion or luxu...

A Fashion Law Dinner Party focused on food and fashion has to have sustainability as a main topic of conversation. To discover the important role that sustainability plays in the food and fashion industries, we travel to Il Borro in Tuscany. A historic medieval village, a hamlet, which, today, preserves tradition, culture and sustainability in the heart of Tuscany as a place of luxurious hospitali...

In the first Fashion Law Dinner Party of 2025, inspired by your New Year's resolutions related to food, we concentrate on the heritage and legal aspects of food and fashion collaborations. How can a fashion brand identity’s match a food product? Can trademark rights in a fashion logo applied to leather goods, and clothing, be expanded to food products as a new category of goods? What about place a...

While exploring film and fashion inspired places to visit in Rome and the Italian State's preservation and support of Cinecittà in the first part of this episode, some questions were raised about Italian fashion and Italian film's common origins in early 20th century Italy. Exploring the origins of Italian fashion and film raises complex notions like sprezzatura , a Renaissance concept most recent...

Two central questions over the holidays include what to wear and what classic movie to watch. In many movies, fashion plays an important role, helping the characters express their identities and narrative arcs. The law also plays a role in films with celebrated fashion moments. Take "Roman Holiday". The ending of this 1950s classic with the fashion icon Audrey Hepburn likely would not have been po...

As part of a series of conversations devoted to source communities, this episode travels to London and Naples to spotlight the global reach of the Neapolitan sartorial tradition and one heritage brand in particular, E. Marinella. In this episode we speak with Ben Allen, the President of Marinella USA and the Director of Marinella UK, who looks after Marinella's products (from scarves to ties worn...

Fashion benefits from a number of source communities, communities from whom cultural practices, traditional knowledge and even artisanship and designs themselves originate. In this Fashion Law Dinner Party we begin an extended exploration of the source communities that shape the fashion products we buy today, and even the designers and Creative Directors fashion brands hire. In this episode we spe...

Following our dinner party with Professor Cathay Smith and a discussion about the fashion law ramifications of reproducing the American flag on clothing and using the American flag as part of fashion expressions, we turn to examining American fashion and style with archivists and fashion historians. What makes American style? What are the origins of an American fashion brand logo? What role does n...

Having discovered the art, history, and culture of Paris, and its relevance for fashion, the second part of our Parisian Fashion Law Dinner Party turns to French Fashion Law. There is a myth that France extends more legal protection to fashion designs than the U.S. through French copyright law. Is this true? We talk to Laurine Janin-Reynaud, an IP attorney with TAoMA Partners based in Paris, about...

Paris has been characterized as the capital of fashion. But what makes Paris so important for fashion, especially for the preservation of fashion's past? How do art and fashion meet in Paris and affect our perceptions of what counts as French fashion heritage? In the first part of this Parisian Fashion Law Dinner Party, we speak to Anya Firestone, the creator of premiere luxury cou-tours in Paris...

A central symbol of an American summer is the American flag. With the 4th of July, we find more and more fashion featuring the American flag. But the American flag can also be a part of brands' heritage and identities. Why can artists and fashion designers alike reinterpret the flag and make their own prints or patterns with the flag? Are there any laws that actually circumscribe the use of the Am...

For fashion lawyers and scholars, the Met Gala is a dream hypothetical. What parts of a Met Gala dress might be conceptually separable under copyright law? What additions within reproductions inspired by the archives are original? How might we balance the preservation of antique fabric with a desire to upcycle that fabric into a new gown? These are just some of the issues Felicia Caponigri explore...

Securing a position in-house, especially with a luxury conglomerate, is often at the top of aspiring fashion lawyers’ career goals. But how can you move in-house and, once you arrive at this dream destination, what do your day-to-day responsibilities look like? In this episode, we speak to Viola Bardi, Legal Manager at Kering Eyewear, about her career in Milan and explore how she incorporates heri...

Partnering with culture and supporting heritage doesn’t just benefit a brand’s reputation. Partnerships between fashion and cultural institutions can also benefit a fashion brand’s bottom line. Over dessert, we speak with Giuseppe Abatista, an Italian attorney, tax specialist, and Ferragamo’s own Tax Consultant, about his experience negotiating agreements for the restoration of cultural properties...

What makes a great partnership between a fashion brand and a cultural institution? In this episode we explore the legal and ethical standards and rules that frame presentations of fashion as part of our wider culture. The presentation of fashion’s cultural significance often happens in a museum, but it can also happen in a public space, like a piazza , where so many fashion shows are staged, or ev...

As fashion accessories go digital, one of the main issues is how to categorize these born digital objects into traditional IP boxes like trademark and copyright. Things can get even more complicated when artists and fashion brands collide in our blurred universe of commerce and culture. What is a trademark use anyway? Can an artist use a trademark in their work or can’t they? Join me for our coffe...