Susan Scafidi is an American lawyer, legal scholar, advocate, nonprofit executive, and commentator. The first professor to offer a formal course on fashion law at a U.S. law school, she is the founder and president of the Fashion Law Institute, a nonprofit organization located at the

Fordham University School of Law Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. In 2013, 91% of the law school's first-time test take ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Tschorn, Adam
"Fordham University launches Fashion Law Institute, a first for the industry"
''Los Angeles Times'', 10 September 2010. Retrieved on 20 December 2012. Scafidi is a frequent commentator on fashion and fashion law, with appearances in the ''New York Times'', the ''Wall Street Journal'', ''

Women's Wear Daily ''Women's Wear Daily'' (also known as ''WWD'') is a fashion-industry trade journal often referred to as the "Bible of fashion".Horyn, Cathy"Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge" ''The New York Times''. (August 20, 1999). It provides infor ...

'', ''Forbes'' ''Time'', ''Newsweek'', '' Crain's New York Business'', the ''Chicago Tribune'', National Public Radio, ''Today'', ''CBS This Morning'', 20/20, '' The Tyra Banks Show'', and other media outlets in the U.S. and abroad. She is also known for her work on

cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...

.Baker, Katie J.M
"A Much-Needed Primer on Cultural Appropriation"
''Jezebel'', 13 November 2012. Retrieved on 20 December 2012.

Fashion law

Scafidi is credited with being the "pioneer," "innovator"Elam, Tricia
"Fashion Law Goes the Law School Route"
''The Root'', 14 September 2012. Retrieved on 20 December 2012. and "senior stateswoman"Riordan, Staci
"Fashion Law 101: How to Create a Movement"
Fashion Law Blog, 13 July 2011. Retrieved on 20 December 2012. of fashion law as a distinct legal field.
''B.A.F.F.L.E.D.'', 17 September 2012. Retrieved on 20 December 2012. In 2005, Scafidi launched CounterfeitChic.com. In addition to discussing examples of originality and copying in fashion, Scafidi used the site to call for a cultural analysis of fashion design protection. Scafidi's work in ''Counterfeit Chic'' has been cited as the inspiration for subsequent fashion law sites. The

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

has recognized ''Counterfeit Chic'' as a top 100 law blog, and ''Counterfeit Chic'' has also received attention in multiple media outlets, including the New York Times, ABC News, and The Tyra Banks Show. Scafidi was the first law professor to advocate for recognizing fashion law as a distinct legal field. Besides writing and speaking on the subject, she offered the first course on fashion law.

Fashion Law Institute

In 2010, with the support of Diane von Furstenberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Scafidi founded the Fashion Law Institute, the world's first academic center dedicated to legal and business issues pertaining to the fashion industry. In 2015, Diane von Furstenberg and Scafidi announced the launch of the world's first master's degrees in fashion law: a

Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...

for attorneys and a Master of Science in Law for designers, executives, and other non-attorney members of the fashion community.

Advocacy for fashion design protection

Scafidi has been a leading proponent for the enactment of intellectual property protection for fashion design. In 2006, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of the bill now referred to as the Innovative Design Protection Act, which she helped draft. She has continued to speak about the bill and to provide updates on design protection in Congress and the courts. She has been an expert and amicus brief author in multiple cases pertaining to brand protection, including

Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc. ''Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.'', 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court decided under what circumstances aesthetic elements of "useful articles" can be restricted by copyright law. The Court created a ...

Civil rights

Scafidi was a founding board member of the Model Alliance, which was formed after Scafidi approached model advocate Sara Ziff to discuss organizational strategy after a showing of Ziff's documentary, ''Picture Me''. Scafidi and Fashion Law Institute assisted with the drafting and enactment of a New York state law that established legal safeguards for models under the age of sixteen. Scafidi described this legislation as "one of the biggest developments in a century, bringing a whole new group under legal protection." Scafidi is on the advisory board of the Humans of Fashion Foundation, an organization dedicated to curbing harassment throughout the fashion industry.

Cultural appropriation

Scafidi is the author of ''Who Owns Culture?'', a study of cultural identity in the contemporary marketplace. Scafidi's work on

and ethnographic legal history has been cited in a range of scholarly articles. As she explained in a January 2006 talk at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, Scafidi's work in both cultural appropriation and fashion grew out of an interest in forms of creativity that the law does not protect and the values implicit in this status, in contrast to other academics' focus on works with extensive and increasing intellectual property protection. Scafidi's work on

has also been cited on both sides in public debates over the use of culture in fashion, such as the Urban Outfitters' Navajo panty; the use of Native American garb in the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show;, literature, music, and art; and Moana and other halloween costumes.

Education and academic career

A native of Washington D.C., Scafidi received her B.A. from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and J.D. from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

. She also did graduate work in history at the

University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. After graduation from Yale, she clerked for

Morris S. Arnold Morris Sheppard Arnold (born October 8, 1941) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Weste ...

of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Scafidi's first law teaching position was at the University of Chicago. She subsequently joined the faculties at the St. Louis University School of Law and the

Dedman School of Law SMU Dedman School of Law, commonly referred to as SMU Law School or Dedman School of Law is a law school located in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in February 1925. SMU Law School is located on the campus of its parent institution, Southern Meth ...

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

, where she received tenure. Prior to becoming a law professor at

, she also taught in the law schools at Brooklyn Law School, Georgetown and Yale.Susan Scafidi
Huffington Post. Retrieved on 20 December 2012.

Selected writing

''Counterfeit Chic''
. . * ttps://ssrn.com/abstract=1309735 "Intellectual Property and Fashion Design," in Peter Yu, ed., ''Intellectual Property and Information Wealth,'' vol. 1, p. 115 (2006).br>"Fiat Fashion Law! The Launch of a Label--and a New Branch of Law", in ''Navigating Fashion Law'' (2012)"F.I.T. Fashion as Information Technology," in ''Syracuse Law Review'', Vol. 59, p. 69 (2008)"Knock it off! Quashing design pirates" (with Narciso Rodriguez), ''Chicago Tribune'', 29 August 2010

"Think Tank: Is Your Company's Dress Code Illegal?", ''Women's Wear Daily'', 29 March 2017

"Brief of Fashion Law Institute et al. in Support of Respondents" ''Star Athletic, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.'', 2016

References

External links

Fashion Law InstituteFashion Law Institute on Getty ImagesTechdirt articles
*Eisenberg, Lee
''Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'', 2009
. *Cline, Elizabeth
''Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion'', 2012
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Scafidi, Susan Living people American lawyers American legal scholars Angier B. Duke Scholars American fashion businesspeople Fordham University faculty Duke University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago alumni Yale Law School alumni Saint Louis University faculty Southern Methodist University faculty American women lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) American women legal scholars Brooklyn Law School faculty American women academics 21st-century American women