LATEX DESIGNS AND PIRACY
Latex Design piracy is a hot topic right now. But it has gone on for quite some time, and The Baroness’ Latex Fashions have been pirated a lot.
I was first alerted to design theft five years ago by a watchful fan who had come across three Baroness designs on a Chinese site. They were very easy to recognize, as not only had they stolen the design, they had even lifted the photography from our site to promote their knock-offs. Fortunately, a warning with threats of legal action was enough to get them taken down.
In another instance, latex being sold on Ebay used our “Care and Feeding” information verbatim, including our contact information (implying we had some connection to the articles being sold, which we did not). Again we had the seller remove our work from their ad.
I realize that most latex fashions from reputable designers are not inexpensive, but it is with good reason; Raw latex sheeting is expensive, as are shipping costs. Then there’s labor—constructing latex garments is a skilled craft which takes time to learn to do well. Real businesses also need to factor in their overhead, rent, electricity, taxes, etc. And lastly, there is the talent of the designer and the cost of the many prototypes required in creating and perfecting a well crafted and designed garment.
That being said, I can understand why the cheap knock offs (Chinese, dealers on eBay) seem to be a great deal. Which brings me to this very informative article on latex piracy.