The Copying Game

After writing my last post I got to thinking about this whole copying/knocking-off propaganda and I remembered a couple of years back to my chance meeting with the great British designer Vivienne Westwood.

She spoke very briefly and insistently yet the only words that I clearly remember her telling me were "Copy...whatever you do, copy." She of course assumed that I was an aspiring designer, which I was not (nor am I one now). Yet I sincerely think she was implying copy the eras past.

Ms. Westwood, the originator of Punk, is very much an advocate of the past (the Renaissance thru to the Edwardian Period) and was once quoted saying "It's so important to look to the past. Because people did have taste and they did have ideals of excellence, and those things are not going to come unless people look at the past."

If looking to the past for inspiration is not deemed copying, then what is considered the past – 6 months, 2 years, 3 years, 30 years? How do we measure the past?

Photo: msnbc.com