Armani, Dolce and Gabbana in Bitter Quilted Silk Trouser Feud
Posted on January 19, 2009
Giorgio Armani, Dominico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have escalated their impassioned feud over trousers. The feud started when Giorgio Armani accused Dolce and Gabbana of copying his quilted silk trouser design. Infuriated, Dolce and Gabbana refuted the claims and fired back that they certainly had nothing to learn from Armani.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana said in a statement, "Surely we still have much to learn, but definitely not from him."
Armani included quilted-silk trousers in their latest menswear show and they accused Dolce & Gabbana of the copying. Reuters reports that Armani was quoted by Italian news agency Ansa as saying, "Now they copy, later they will learn.
The Reuters story also includes some fresh burns from Dolce & Gabbana about Armani including that Armani has "never has been an inspiration source for us and we stopped seeing his fashion shows years ago" and "As Picasso used to say, copying from others is inevitable, but copying from oneself leads to sterility."
Oh, snap. Trousergate is just getting started. If the lawyers get involved, this is going to get ugly. Under U.S. law, you can't copyright an idea but we have no idea what the Italian legal position on the subject is. In any event, the quilted silk track suit pants (pictured above) are pretty cool looking. Dolce & Gabbana showed them in black, blue and brown.