Taking Credit and Giving Credit

[threadwalker]

This is a question about intellectual property and taking/giving credit specific to costuming. I'm sure it can apply to other arts, but my interal dialogue has been centered around costuming.

At what point do you say "I made it", "we made it", or "so and so helped me make it"? And what do those statements mean when you hear them?

For example, One person told me that when they hear the statement "I made it," they don't assume that means the speaker draped the pattern since most people don't drape themselves.

What do you say and when do you say it?


I am like the mad scientist and most of my stuff is patterned by me in the middle of the night by the light of a single bulb. (cue thunder and lightning) It takes a butt-load of time and it's hard, but when I get the impulse to make something I can't wait for someone to drape me. I'm all about striking when the iron is hot because life won't necessarily give me another window of time very soon.

So when I say, "I made it", I mean I draped it, cut it, and sewed it. This also means that when I hear someone say, "I made it," I assume they draped it, cut it and sewed it themselves, but especially the draping/patterning. It's interesting to learn the variations on what this means to others.

To me, my intellectual property is when the cut/drape is a result of my research and I execute the drape. If someone else has me drape and tells me where they want the seams, that's their intellectual property and I'm just the (skilled) set of hands turning it into reality.

Those are the easy ones. I think the gray areas are the collaborations.

If I am helping someone and it's a garment

-based on my research,
-I drape them,
-show them how to cut (add seam allowance etc)
-set in the sleeves (do the tricky parts)
-sew anything that isn't a straight seam,

(which mostly leaves straight skirt seams, hems and finish work for the other person), I still consider that to be essentially my work. I will always give credit where credit is due and cheerfully explain the collaboration, but I feel at that point that it's totally appropriate to put a garment like that in my own portfolio for future reference.

There is the variation where I help someone pin and then sit beside them while they sew it together and I consider that to be a "we did it together" and my comments would be along the lines of I patterned and taught, but so-n-so did all the work and construction themselves.

So I'm either making something or teaching and there isn't much middle ground.

Comments

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

Any outfit I wear, is *my* outfit bec. I assemble the total look, from hairstyle to accessories to skin-out choice of garments. The ensemble is my creation, & I'm of the school that feels assemblage is as much an art as anything else.

That said, each specific item gets credit from how/where it came from. I don't make my own shoes & I rarely create my own jewelry. I occasionally pattern for myself. I may commission a garment, & depending on how much input I gave, I consider that a collaboration where we each get some credit (my design, another person's sewing, for example). My own totally hair-brained ideas, uh, yeah, all my credit (bec. nobody else wants it, hah). But even those may be sparked by a conversation with someone -- this has happened more than once!

My costume diaries note where everything comes from, bec. ultimately, I don't think most art is created in a vacuum.