"An original design product will have a cost higher than its copy," says designer Marcel Wanders (above). "It’s very simple. Stealing most of the time is more cheap than buying."

Unscrupulous manufacturers visit Milan to photograph new prototypes and then rush out copies before the original products reach the market, according to Casper Vissers (below), CEO of furniture and lighting brand Moooi.

"It’s very sour if you have presented a product in April and it’s in the shops in September, but a bloody copier has it already in August," says Vissers, speaking at Moooi's spectacular Unexpected Welcome show in Milan (below). "This is what happens at the moment."

Vissers adds that legal action against copiers in Asia is expensive and, even if it’s successful in the short term, it does little to stem the tide: "You need huge amounts of money [to launch a law suit in the Far East] and if you win - if - a new limited company in China will start production [of copies]".

Copiers are increasingly shameless about their intentions, says Tom Dixon, speaking at his presentation at MOST in Milan. "People feel very confident copying things. Some people come around with spy glasses photographing things but other people are more overt and come in with iPads or film crews."

Dixon says the problem is getting worse, with markets around the world and even the UK market increasingly flooded with copies. "Everywhere we go in Australia or Singapore or India we’ll see many, many copies, and that’s also hitting more and more the UK as well."

Gregg Buchbinder (above), CEO of furniture company Emeco, says the solution is for designers to push manufacturers to make more sophisticated products that are harder to copy. The furniture collection Emeco developed with designer Konstantin Grcic for the Parrish Art Museum on Long Island (below), for example, "was a very difficult project to do. Although the chair looks simple, there’s nothing skipped."

"The more difficult it is, the more difficult it is for people to knock it off," Buchbinder adds.

Emeco aggressively pursues copyists through the courts and earlier this year won a case against fellow US manufacturer Restoration Hardware, which had copied the iconic Navy chair.

But outside Europe and the US, copyright law is less robust and harder to enforce. "It’s very, very difficult to protect yourself legally," says Dixon.

Dixon’s company is directly responding to the problem of copying by developing a range of new products designed to make life more difficult for counterfeiters.

"What you’ll see [at our Milan presentation] is a number of coping strategies," Dixon explains. "We’ve been trying as much as possible to invest in tooling and slightly more advanced technology. We’re working on adaptive models where we make specific things for clients. A new bespoke division where we make things for people, so we adapt our products to suit a client’s needs. So there’s ways of dealing with it. We’ve just got to be faster and smarter."

See all our stories about copying in design ».

Milan is the second stop on our Dezeen and MINI World Tour. See all our reports from our first destination, Cape Town. This movie features a MINI Cooper S Paceman.

The music featured is a track called Divisive by We Have Band, a UK-based electronic act who played at the MINI Paceman Garage in Milan on Friday. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

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who copy our products” appeared first on Dezeen.

Each April, the world's leading designers descend on the city for the fair still regarded as the most important in the world. "I come to Milan every year," says Yves Behar. "It's the obligatory stop."

"It's a moment I can't miss," agrees Stephen Burks. "It's the most important week in the design calendar."

They are joined by hundreds of thousands of international visitors including students, journalists, buyers and younger designers trying to get their work noticed.

"It gives lots of young designers a great thrill to come here and get discovered," says Ron Arad. "My entire design team comes here to suck up new ideas and ensure they're seeing the latest and the greatest," says Anders Warming, head of design at MINI.

The fair owes its importance to the emergence of Milan as the world's key centre for the design and manufacture of both furniture and products after the devastation of the Second World War, playing a key role in Italy's economic recovery. "All of the important history of post-war furniture design happened here," says Konstantin Grcic.

The official fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, as well as the Fuori Salone events around the city, grew over the years into the sprawling citywide festival it is today. "There was a lot of excitement around [the fair], starting in the early eighties with Memphis and [Studio] Alchimia," says Arad, citing two of the most influential Milanese design studios of the last century.

However the economic crisis of recent years and the emergence of rival design centres combined to make this year's fair a more sober affair than recent years. "I feel like there's a return to the reason why we are all here, which is the actual commerce of the fair," says Johanna Agerman Ross, editor-in-chief of Disegno magazine.

"It's certainly got much, much more competition these days," says journalist and curator Henrietta Thompson. "The London Design Festival is fantastic these days but also Stockholm and Paris."

Milan-based designer Fabio Novembre touches on the reasons why the city might be losing its edge: "It's hard to take a group of Italians and make them all go in one direction," he says. "That explains why we're in a big crisis and why we are almost losing the importance of Salone del Mobile."

Joseph Grima, editor-in-chief of Milanese design magazine Domus, agrees. "The city is really in need of someone who's going to have a vision for the future," he says.

"Milan remains the only place where you can still see everybody in one go," says Tom Dixon. "Whether it can maintain that top spot … is hard to tell. It becomes impossible to navigate the city, you can't get a taxi, you can't get a hotel room and you can't afford space to show your goods."

Look out for more reports from Milan as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour in the coming days. The car featured in the movie is the MINI Paceman.

The music featured is a track called Divisive by We Are Band, a UK-based electronic act who played at the MINI Paceman Garage in Milan on Friday. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

The post "It's the most important week in
the design calendar" appeared first on Dezeen.

Named The Capsule, Dixon's range for the sports brand includes parkas that transform into sleeping bags and hooded tops that zip into small pouches.

The designer has also created a set of overalls that can be deconstructed with zips and poppers to form a long coat, a cropped jacket, trousers, a skirt or shorts.

Backpacks unfold to form wardrobes packed with enough clothes and accessories for a weekend away.

Hung individually or displayed against tarpaulins, items rotate continuously along rails, while others are laid out on camp beds.

The exhibition is housed in a former railway station, so sounds of steam trains and industrial activity are played around the space and smoke is pumped out into the air.

The lightweight waterproofs and outdoor apparel are coloured in shades of blue, yellow, grey and green, and will be available in Adidas stores from mid November.

Dixon has also launched a collection of champagne buckets and faceted furniture inspired by gemstones at MOST, an exhibition venue he founded in 2012 at the Museum of Science and Technology on Via Olona.

See more designs by Tom Dixon »
See all our coverage of Milan 2013 »
See our Milan 2013 map »

Here's the press release from Adidas:

Adidas by Tom Dixon unveiled at MOST during Milan’s Salone del Mobile

Mobility, modularity, and a dynamic, 21st-century life are the core concepts at the heart of a new collaboration between Adidas and the renowned British industrial designer Tom Dixon.

Debuting this month at MOST in an experimental factory installation, created by Design Research Studio and set in an immense environment of a reconstructed 19th Century railway station, the resulting collection runs the gamut from convertible travel bags and luggage to sleek sportswear and apparel.

The adidas by Tom Dixon collection uniquely reflects both Adidas’ forward-thinking technologies and Dixon’s inventive style.

The teaming up of Tom Dixon and Adidas is an opportunity for grand exploration into the sport’s world expertise in performance, matched with British ingenuity, both representing unique craftsmanship and innovation.

Known for his radical and highly influential selvage aesthetic, Dixon has since the 1980s championed a return to honest materials and British craftsmanship.

In the first instalment of his two-year partnership with Adidas, this singular sensibility is expressed in padded parkas that convert to sleeping bags, ‘ultralite’ hoodies that can be zipped into small pouches during travel, and a spectacular modular five-in-one overall design that converts to a coat, jacket, pant, skirt, or short.

Accessories also work double and triple duty as duffle bags convert to suitcases and garment bags to backpacks. The innovative collection offers an exciting glimpse at the future of sport style.

Apparel is priced from €110 to €1300, while footwear ranges from €170 to €270 and accessories from €220 to €350. Adidas by Tom Dixon will be available in stores worldwide from mid November 2013.

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for Adidas appeared first on Dezeen.

Above: Gem lights

Tom Dixon's Rough & Smooth collection includes Gem, a family of angular lights, tables and mirrors inspired by gemstones and sand-cast from nickel-plated aluminium.

Above: Gem tables and mirrors

The Spun champagne bucket and tables are made from sheets of hand-spun solid brass polished to a mirror finish.

Above: Gem lights

The Flask light combines a ridged sphere of hand-blown glass with a smoked glass hood, while the Cell light is inspired by the growth of cells and made from layers of etched and polished brass.

Above: Spun champagne bucket and tables

The Bell floor lamp and table lamp have chrome-plated dome for a shade and another dome as a chunky base.

Above: Flask pendant lamps

An extension of the earlier Fan chair, the Fan dining chair, stool and table are formed from machined wood spindles.

Above: Cell wall lamp

The Mass coat stand, book stand, dining table and console table are chunky pieces of furniture clad in brass, which will develop a natural patina over time.

Above: Cell pendant lamps

The collection will be shown from 8 to 14 April at MOST in Milan's National Museum of Science and Technology, an exhibition set up by Dixon last year as he explained in a filmed interview with Dezeen.

Above: Bell floor and table lamps

Other products by Dixon we've featured include a set of iridescent stoneware pendant lamps and a light that casts geometric shadows on surrounding surfaces – see all design by Tom Dixon.

Above: Fan dining chair, stool and table

Here's some more information from the designer:

This year we take visitors through two contrasting environments – Rough and Smooth. Celebrating the joy of contrast, this year we are highlighting the opposite qualities of our new products. Rough because this season we have worked on even more textural honesty and material weight in our production. And smooth because we are still fascinated by extreme polished surfaces, sharp lines and modern manufacturing.

Above: Mass dining table

Follow a rollercoaster journey through the rough and tumble of our warehouse where fresh stock is unloaded and unpacked fresh from the manufacturing process and on through tearooms and shop windows into our spanking new show space which we furnish with our latest lighting and furniture, ranging from the textured sand-cast nickel- plated aluminium to the ultra-polished chromed pressed steel.

Above: Mass coat stand, book stand and console table

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by Tom Dixon appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: "Legal systems don't really defend designers at all" when it comes to copying, British designer Tom Dixon told Dezeen today at the Global Design Forum, a day of talks from leading figures in the design world as part of the London Design Festival (+audio).

Above: Tom Dixon spoke to Dezeen after his talk at the Global Design Forum today

In his presentation earlier this morning, Dixon commented on the threat foreign manufacturers pose to his design business. Searching for his work on eBay produces seven pages and only two genuine items, he said: "All the others are copies at a third of the price from Hong Kong." Copiers use drawings from designers' websites to produce accurate replicas and even steal marketing images to paste into their own online catalogues, he explained. "It's very quick and pernicious. I used to laugh it off and be flattered that people bothered to copy, but now I'm more nervous."

Speaking to Dezeen after his talk, Dixon explained that "in Australia for instance, if you call something a Tom Dixon replica you can bypass the law: you're stating what the thing is, it's a replica, so therefore it's legitimate even though it's a copy." He says that designers "just have to be smarter, faster and quicker to market."

Dixon is therefore enthusiastic about technological advances that are making the manufacturing process more fast and flexible, citing his use of robotic machines that bypass the high set-up costs and inflexibility of mass-production and enable the same design to be produced in Britain, the US and China simultaneously, simply by sending a computer file.

"Localised production will become more and more the model, just because we won't be able to afford to ship things so much," he told us. "Perhaps you do want things which are more adapted to your personal needs and maybe you'll cherish things which are more personal anyway. Previously those things were only available to people that could afford tailor-made shoes but there's no doubt that it's already possible to personalise things for your own needs right now. So that could be a massive growing trend."

In May the UK government announced changes in the law to give ‘artistic’ manufactured goods the same term of copyright protection as music and literature, following a campaign spearheaded by Elle Decoration UK editor Michelle Ogundehin.

Read Dezeen's report on how localised, digital manufacture is revolutionising industrial design here, and watch our movie filmed with Tom Dixon at his digital mini factory in Milan here.

The Global Design Forum is a new conference taking place today, organised by the London Design Festival to bring together designers, critics, technology experts, trend forecasters and trade and government representatives to discuss the global agenda for design.

See all our stories about Tom Dixon »
See all our stories about London Festival 2012 »

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at all" - Tom Dixon appeared first on Dezeen.