Cut and Copy

published Sep 15, 2007
Cut and Copy
The shears are drawn as the fashion industry debates knock-offs.

Buyers from the leading department stores in the United States started sifting through the work of hundreds of designers as another Fashion Week began last week in New York, seeking the looks shoppers will want to wear next season.

But Seema Anand will be looking for the ones they want right now.

Few would recognise Anand, who will be following the catwalk shows through photos posted on the web.

However, the designer has dressed more people than most of the famous designers exhibiting under the tents in New York's Bryant Park, just a few blocks from her studio.

Her company, Simonia Fashions, is one of many that make inexpensive clothes inspired by the work of other designers for trendy stores such as Forever 21 and behemoths such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's.

"If I see something on Style.com, all I have to do is email the picture to my factory and say, 'I want something similar, or a silhouette made just like this,"' Anand says.

The factory, at Jaipur in India, can deliver copies months before the original.

Anand compares a gold-sequin tunic she created to a nearly identical item by the designer Tory Burch.

Bloomingdale's had asked her to make several hundred of the dresses for its Aqua label, Anand says.