It is sometimes thought that the crusade against style piracy was fought by the Paris couture solely against the American ready-to-wear industry; however, it appears that the first court case to offer "protection to a sartorial idea or conception as such" was contested by Madeleine Vionnet in Paris, December 1921, against two smaller Parisian houses. Miler Soeurs and Henriette Bondreaux were accused of copying Vionnet originals and selling them to Franklin Simon, Bergdorf Goodman, and Saks Fifth Avenue.(69) December 1922 saw additional claims by Vionnet and others "of the most famous Paris couturiers" that piracy was rampant within the French industry.(70) Two years later, the couturiers were joined by other luxury-goods manufacturers in forming the Association for the Defense of Plastic and Applied Arts.(71) Elizabeth Hawes recounts her own activities as a clandestine sketcher of Paris models in the 1920s in Fashion is Spinach, implicating not only French copyists, but also American and European wholesalers and retailers. Copying was so lucrative for everyone -except the originator of the dress - that in spite of repeated efforts by the couture and other luxury industries to curb it, it remained a serious plague throughout the 1930s [figs. 93-94].(72)

Despite the apparent interest in the topic in the early 1920s, it took some time for the French complaint -that copyists hurt business by making new ideas commonplace -to take hold in the American industry. Maurice Rentner, an important New York manufacturer of high-end ready-to-wear from the 1910s, spearheaded the establishment of the Fashion Originators Guild in 1933. From twelve original members, it had grown by the end of its first year to sixty members, all high-price manufacturers. The Guild established a Design Registration Bureau following the French lead and asked retailers for "Declarations of Cooperation" in which they "agreed not to buy or sell copies of styles originated by Guild members" [fig. 95].(73) By late 1935, the Guild was being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for restraint of trade and warring in the press with retailers, particularly department stores, and with the Popular Price Dress Manufacturers Group Inc., the trade organization of moderate and budget dress wholesalers.(74) Ultimately, the Guild was forced to back down.