Dunnes calls fashion expert in copy case
Susan Maher, who runs a fashion website selling discounted high-fashion items, said the “faux shrug cami top” in question was available in the marketplace before Karen Millen launched its version in December 2005.
She said the concept has been around since the early 20th century and can be found in fashion items in the 1930s, 1950s and up to the 1990s. She said it was used during warm-up routines by ballet dancers and in the 1990s was integrated into jumpers and tops.
She was giving evidence on behalf of Dunnes Stores in their defence of a landmark legal action taken against them at the Commercial Court by Mosaic Fashions, which claims Dunnes Stores copied items of clothing and put them on sale after they were launched by the British companies.
It was the third day of the action taken by Mosaic Fashions, the parent company of Karen Millen Ltd, Coast Ltd and Whistles Ltd, against Dunnes Stores. The companies claim Dunnes produced almost identical women’s clothing items to a number of tops produced by them and this infringes their design rights as protected by a new European regulation of 2001 on Unregistered Community Designs.
The companies are not seeking damages but an order for all necessary accounts and enquiries. Dunnes Stores denies the claims.
It is the first case to be taken under the new regulation in Ireland and the first case in Europe involving fashion items. The European regulation is to protect design rights and to prevent their unauthorised copying.
Ms Maher told Richard Nesbitt SC, for Dunnes Stores, that the Karen Millen top was “a very common design” and that she would have come across it in vintage designs and in the past 10 years.
She said the Karen Millen top wouldn’t create “a different overall impression” on her from similar tops and this design has been around for a very long time and is very familiar to the consumer.
She said she could not find similar styles on high fashion websites because the type of top is “too commonplace to feature on the catwalk”.
“There are no high street websites,” she added.
Ms Maher handed a number of her own tops in to court as exhibits and described to the court why she thought they would create a different overall impression than the Karen Millen top. These included three Marni tops and a Miu Miu cardigan.
She said a Karen Millen shirt, which is also the subject of the action, did not differ from any other shirt on the market for the past 10 or 15 years.
Cross-examined by Michael McDowell SC, for Mosaic, Ms Maher said she was first approached last May by solicitors for Dunnes Stores to give her opinion in the case and to research the market.
She told Mr McDowell she was “an informed user” and there was no difference in overall impression between the Karen Millen shirt and another Paul Smith-designed shirt.
Helen James, who has been in the fashion industry for 14 years, told Mr Nesbitt the “faux shrug over a cami top” style has been in existence in the fashion world for a number of years.
The case before Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan continues today.
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