The Robb'd that smiles...spends a bootless grief

A Comment on the Boot Thieves

You surely know that Melville wasn’t really writing about whales.  He also once said, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”  Perhaps that better queues us here as to what’s at stake.

This past week yet another boot manufacturer from a country that permits all manner of artifice and grift has presented their work on social media to the apparent admiration of respected reviewers.  There are at least two such companies, who are by most accounts larger factory operations equipped to follow so closely the work of the artisan makers they copy that they can counterfeit like fast fashion within days of the originator’s announcement.

The work not only flagrantly and willfully copies the artisan’s work, it also uses the original makers’ style names as social media hashtags and simultaneously lifts the presentation of ad copy.  You have to look twice to see the difference.  Catch me if you can.

But in truth there’s no fine line here.  There’s not even the pretense to distinguish some nuance or style variant that would suggest inspiration or shared heritage values.  No.  There’s just stealing.  Of course, these copies do have subtle differences, but their intention is imposture in order to tout price points, and hence complete the grift.  Some just call that profit.

The whole thing makes me clinch my teeth in odium. But why take it so hard?

“The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.” Shakespeare in Othello reminds us: perhaps we should laugh it off if there’s nothing we can do about it. These might be Shakespeare’s shoes and have nothing to do with the thievery in question just sayin’ yo.

And as much as my antipathy is directed to these companies (n.b., you can clinch your teeth too here if you like), I find the response of so many boot enthusiasts equally disappointing repugnant.  Far be it from me to create a row and you may say what’s the fuss.

The public conversation usually turns first to appearances and to the putative quality of the forgeries.  Does anyone else remember the dude from Queens who was painting Rothkos?  (Look here if you need a reminder: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/final-knoedler-forgery-lawsuit-settled-1637302) I mean, pretty nice fake-Rothkos, if you ask me.  Granted they were passing them off as Rothkos for Big Money, not stating in broad daylight that they were trading in imitations and forgeries. 

So, to the credit of the boot forgers, let’s say that their conspicuous efforts also begin with shameless, manifest efforts to pirate others’ work but for the sake of a more accessible price and that they don’t claim to be originals.  But let’s be clear here: the comparison with respect to design and quality is explicit, their intent is to pillage an original artisan for the purpose of profit because they are not legally prohibited from doing so.  Nothing wrong with that? 

That’s where I am as disappointed with those who regard these practices somehow justified because: (1) these are apparently “nice” boots, (2) the style is part of a tradition in which there are perhaps dozens of inspired and influenced makers, thus appropriation is the norm, not the exception, and after all, (3) it’s just capitalism.

The first consideration I’m going to have to render irrelevant to our conversation here: poor quality or good, the work is self-consciously appropriated in order to copy as directly as possible the original artist’s work.  I do wonder why these companies, so capable of making “nice boots” can’t tweak just enough to present the work more fairly, more authentically.

Our second consideration is worthy of paragraphs in which we discuss tradition, appropriation and inspiration, styles developed, shared, prompting innovation and nuance and blahblahblah.

But the copy-companies in question, corporations working in a nation-state that offers no legal recourse, make their imitations neither as tribute nor replica: they are sold to affect identity.  These are not mere refractions of shared style.

Allow the allegory above once again to serve us.

Strictly speaking, these copy-boots are not fake-Rothkos being passed off as real-Rothkos.  (One could imagine the forgers would be quite happy to do as much were if that were the more lucrative path.)  Rather, they are non-Rothkos meant to appear as exactly as is possible to be Rothkos, sold using nothing less than Rothko’s own presentation (in advertisement, in this case).  Is this analogy clear yet?  Horse beaten? 

Now you tell me:  Is such unfeigned pilfering really okay with you, particularly because you like the “quality” and the price?  Forgive me for being the Boot Pontificator but if you can rationalize this kind of send up you oughta’ be ashamed of yourself.  Did someone fail to explain to you in business school the difference between right and wrong?  Or how about just your parents?

I know something about this heritage inspiration business, so just a few more words. 

Some 30 years ago I was part of a bicycle company that paid homage to a certain style of countryside riding and bike construction that had strong roots in post-war France.  Several different “constructeurs” had developed their work along much the same lines.  They would also take existing parts from established companies and modify them, much the way a chop shop might modify a moto.  Never did they pass off their modifications as original but in making those modifications they clearly added their touch, their signature.

Lots of these bicycles “look” similar or even “the same” to less discerning eyes and like contemporary Service boots or even “replica style” denim, they often borrowed, even reproduced past designs.  But in every case that I can recall the bicycle constructeurs were keen not to pretend or counterfeit or just cloud the truth.  There was no pilfering or impersonation and still they managed to compete in the same marketplace.

When our little bicycle company decades later took inspiration from these originators we openly acknowledged their influence by name but it would never have occurred to us to present our work as if, such that others might happily “mistake” us for those who had inspired us.  And, well, that’s what we have here now in Boot World: at least two companies hellbent on presenting for the purpose of mistaking rather than creating identity.  Voltaire once wrote that “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.”  His use of “judicious” makes all the difference. 

My objection may not reach far into any readership, and I suppose all this actually matters very little in a world in which stealing intellectual property is just another norm of capitalism.  I certainly have no skin in the game, though I confess to being a fanboy of the artisan company that is being copied.  Those good folks need not care---they have plenty of business and the forgers are unlikely to take much of that---though the insult cannot be gainsaid.   

Why am I so offended as to spend this time writing about what one of the offenders called “none of my business”?

I suppose because I want to think better of people.  “No man was ever great by imitation,” wrote Dr. Johnson.  And I want to think well of those with whom I share this strange little passion for boots, especially those made by a shop of four artisans in a basement rather than a large factory company.

I will say that I’m pretty damn disappointed that nearly every conversation I have had in public reduces the issue to price and the machinations of capitalism.  And that I find disturbing if only because living in such a purely transactional world can reduce ethics to quaint triviality when, after all, there are nice boots to be had for such a good price.  This matter may in fact be trivial but I do wonder how people live with themselves, not just about their Brannock size.

P.S.  George didn’t rip off “He’s So Fine,” not as I see it, but that story will have to wait another day.