Smalltown Seamstress Battles Giant Chanel
Imagine yourself working with fellow tailors in a small town and then waking up one day to battle against one of the world's greatest fashion houses...
"You cannot imagine what it is like. You are faced with an enormous machine. You become the guilty party," says the smalltown seamstress Carmen Colle.
Carmen Colle is a 61 year-old former social worker who founded an ethical clothing company in a small town in Eastern France to provide employment for refugees. Her company, World Tricot, supplies handmade haute couture to some of fashion's leading names including Christian Dior, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Givenchy.
She is now taking might as she battles Chanel over a crochet pattern, which she claims was used by the fashion house without placing an order. Insisting that the pattern is originally created by her own tailors, she is pushing for 2.5m Euro of damages for alleged counterfeit and breach of contract.
Since she lodged her official complaint four and a half years ago, her company has suffered with the decrease in annual sales, refusal of banks to help her, disappearance of former clients, and laying off of many employees. Colle says she has been subjected to a strategy of "pressures and manipulation."
But now that she has finally taken the battle to court, she's hoping to win the fight.
"It is not just World Tricot at stake. It is the recognition of small businesses and their creations. (Big names) treat us as things they can take up and then throw away. It's a shame for them. The greatness of a country, and the greatness of a brand, is the respect it shows for its petites mains."
Chanel, meanwhile, insists that the design was its own and says that "the making of a crochet sample on the basis of precise instructions given by Chanel's creative studio does not mean that a pattern's creation can be claimed."
To face a legal battle against an established fashion house that has become part of French national identity, it is like David and Goliath carrying not sword and slingshot but needles and threads.
But Carmen Colle remains stoic. "I will try to carry on. Whether they find me right or wrong, I have done all I can. Now it's for them to decide."
"You cannot imagine what it is like. You are faced with an enormous machine. You become the guilty party," says the smalltown seamstress Carmen Colle.
Carmen Colle is a 61 year-old former social worker who founded an ethical clothing company in a small town in Eastern France to provide employment for refugees. Her company, World Tricot, supplies handmade haute couture to some of fashion's leading names including Christian Dior, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Givenchy.
She is now taking might as she battles Chanel over a crochet pattern, which she claims was used by the fashion house without placing an order. Insisting that the pattern is originally created by her own tailors, she is pushing for 2.5m Euro of damages for alleged counterfeit and breach of contract.
Since she lodged her official complaint four and a half years ago, her company has suffered with the decrease in annual sales, refusal of banks to help her, disappearance of former clients, and laying off of many employees. Colle says she has been subjected to a strategy of "pressures and manipulation."
But now that she has finally taken the battle to court, she's hoping to win the fight.
"It is not just World Tricot at stake. It is the recognition of small businesses and their creations. (Big names) treat us as things they can take up and then throw away. It's a shame for them. The greatness of a country, and the greatness of a brand, is the respect it shows for its petites mains."
Chanel, meanwhile, insists that the design was its own and says that "the making of a crochet sample on the basis of precise instructions given by Chanel's creative studio does not mean that a pattern's creation can be claimed."
To face a legal battle against an established fashion house that has become part of French national identity, it is like David and Goliath carrying not sword and slingshot but needles and threads.
But Carmen Colle remains stoic. "I will try to carry on. Whether they find me right or wrong, I have done all I can. Now it's for them to decide."
Labels: Carmen Colle, Chanel
posted by Maggie's Nest at
11/06/2009
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