Imagine this: you’re on vacation in some sunny place. You’ve been laying on the beach all day, soaking up rays when you decide it’s time to head back to the hotel. But not without a quick stop at the nearby shops! You bob in and out of the little boutiques when suddenly you’ve stopped. There’s a Coach bag sparkling in the sunlight, calling your name. You walk over, examine the price tag and are thrilled to see it’s cheaper than you could have ever hoped for.

Photo: Courtesy of Coach

Sound familiar? Thought so. It’s not uncommon for us females to gravitate toward these knock-off bags because they look so real and come so cheap. Well, we hate to be the barer of bad news, but those aren’t anything but fakes. Not only are we disappointed, but the fashion industry is slowly becoming enraged with design copy cats and want revenge. The Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act is aimed to do just that.

OK, so what exactly is this bill? For starters, it’s a bill that has the support of both the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), which is a pretty big thing. The main thing the bill hopes to accomplish is to limit copied products. Designers who think their work has been duplicated must prove his/her design has “a unique, distinguishable, non-trivial and non-utilitarian variation over prior designs.” They also need to show that the copy is “substantially identical” and could be mistaken for the original. Basically, they want to protect against copyright infringement. It would protect anything and everything from scarves to belts to handbags, and more.

Photo: Retna

Among the major backers of this bill are Lazaro Hernadez and Jack McCollough, co-founders of Proenza Schouler. They testified before Congress displaying their support. “Our designs are born in our imagination. We create something from nothing at all,” Hernandez said. “By far the majority of apparel is based on garments already in the public domain. Nothing about the proposed legislation will change that. Nobody will ever be able to claim ownership of the T-shirt or pencil skirt. This bill is intended to protect only those designs that are truly original.” We know it’s not cool to buy knockoffs and now we know how much designers hate seeing their original ideas replicated. Case in point: the CFDA recently teamed with eBay to launch a line of bags with a big message—Can’t Fake Fashion. Designers like Dianne Von Furstenburg, The Roy, Tory Burch, Jason Wu, and others joined the cause and created the one-of-a-kind bags. There’s only one small problem. Oftentimes the fact that there are copies floating around pushes designers to keep creating new and improved products which propels the fashion world.

Photo: Courtesy of Kevork Djansezian / AP

Without copyright protection, the fashion industry still generates $20 billion in revenue in the U.S. And one of our fave stores, Forever 21, has often been the subject of copyright laws, yet they manage to produce $3 billion in revenue. Keep your ears open for the nitty gritty details as this bill’s progression in Congress unfolds because you’ll want to know if your revered designers will win out!