Susan Scafidi
Susan Scafidi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Washington, D.C., United States |
| Occupation(s) | Attorney, legal academic, advocate, nonprofit leader, media commentator |
| Known for | Founder and president of the Fashion Law Institute; pioneer in fashion law education |
| Notable work | Who Owns Culture? |
Susan Scafidi is an American attorney, legal academic, advocate, nonprofit leader, and media commentator. She was the pioneer in introducing a dedicated course on fashion law at a U.S. law school and is the founder and current president of the Fashion Law Institute, a nonprofit entity housed within Fordham University School of Law in New York City.
Education and academic career
Originally from Washington D.C., Scafidi obtained her B.A. from Duke University and earned her J.D. at Yale Law School. She also engaged in graduate-level history studies at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Chicago. Following her graduation from Yale, she served as a clerk for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Her initial academic appointments included faculty roles at the University of Chicago, St. Louis University School of Law, and the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University, where she was granted tenure. Additionally, she has taught at Brooklyn Law School, Georgetown University, and Yale before joining the faculty at Fordham University School of Law.
Fashion law
Scafidi is widely regarded as a "trailblazer," "innovator," and "leading figure" in defining fashion law as an independent legal specialty. In 2005, she created CounterfeitChic.com, a website dedicated to exploring issues surrounding originality versus imitation in fashion, while promoting cultural sensitivity in protecting design rights. This initiative influenced subsequent fashion law platforms and was recognized by the American Bar Association as one of the top 100 law blogs. It has gained coverage in prominent media such as The New York Times, ABC News, and The Tyra Banks Show.
She holds the distinction of being the first law professor to formally promote fashion law as a separate discipline by teaching its initial course and establishing the Fashion Law Institute to advance legal education and advocacy tailored to the fashion sector.
Fashion Law Institute
In 2010, with backing from Diane von Furstenberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Scafidi launched the Fashion Law Institute, marking it as the inaugural academic center concentrating on legal and commercial challenges within the fashion industry. By 2015, von Furstenberg and Scafidi introduced the world’s first graduate degrees in fashion law: a Master of Laws designed for lawyers and a Master of Science in Law aimed at designers, executives, and other non-lawyer professionals in fashion.
Advocacy for fashion design protection
Scafidi has played a prominent role advocating for intellectual property rights concerning fashion design. In 2006, she provided testimony before the House Judiciary Committee endorsing legislation later enacted as the Innovative Design Protection Act, which she contributed to drafting. She remains actively involved with legislative bodies and courts on matters related to design protection. Furthermore, Scafidi has acted as an expert witness and authored amicus briefs in pivotal trademark protection cases such as Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc., which upheld copyright safeguards for cheerleading uniform designs.
Civil rights
As a founding board member of the Model Alliance—formed after her strategic consultation with model advocate Sara Ziff following Ziff’s documentary Picture Me—Scafidi has been instrumental in advancing model labor rights. The Fashion Law Institute collaborated in drafting and passing New York state legislation that extends legal protections to models under sixteen years old, which Scafidi described as “one of the most significant advancements in a century” for labor standards within modeling. She also contributes to the advisory board of the Humans of Fashion Foundation, an organization committed to combating harassment within the fashion industry.
Cultural appropriation
Scafidi is the author of Who Owns Culture?, an in-depth examination of cultural identity and the commercialization of cultural elements. Her scholarship on cultural appropriation and its legal dimensions has been extensively referenced in academic literature and public discourse, notably in debates surrounding Urban Outfitters' use of Navajo designs, the inclusion of Native American garments in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and broader conversations about cultural representation in literature, music, visual arts, and costumes such as those inspired by Moana. Scafidi’s analysis underscores deficiencies in existing intellectual property laws regarding certain creative expressions, contributing to ongoing debates about cultural rights and legal protections within the commercial sector.
Selected writing
- Counterfeit Chic
- Who Owns Culture? Authenticity and Appropriation in American Law, 2005.
- "Intellectual Property and Fashion Design," in Peter Yu, ed., Intellectual Property and Information Wealth, vol. 1, p. 115 (2006).
- "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" (co-authored 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.
External links
- Living people
- American lawyers
- American legal scholars
- Angier B. Duke Scholars
- American businesspeople in fashion
- 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
- American women legal scholars
- Brooklyn Law School faculty
- American women academics
- 21st-century American women