When it comes to “black market” goods such as expensive label clothing and designer handbags, there seems to be no restrictions in Bangkok and the products are sold in large markets throughout the city. I was, however, surprised to have discovered a shop that sold imitation iconic designer furniture.
The shop had nearly perfect replicas of Eames, Eero Saarinen, Phillip Starck and others. I found it particularly interesting that the company Pioneer International not only ripped off the designs, but they also made there own “improvements” – for example, the Philippe Starck influenced Toilet Chair.Now everyone can enjoy dropping a deuce on quality design.
Toilet Chair
The shop attendant informed me that the design was half Phillip Starck and half original. I am the first to admit that all design is inspired by other objects, but I am still left wondering what great original designs could have been produced with the time, energy and financing that went into making all of the fakes.
Bangkok has proven to be a vast city full of friendly locals and numerous tourists. I have learned to minimize my judgments when I see an older foreigner man with a Thai girl on his arm, because almost every guy seems to have found his local trophy girlfriend. Fortunately, the Thai culture does not practice the “hard sell” and the darker sides of Bangkok are easy to avoid.
Over the next few months, I hope to find the creative pulse of Southeast Asia. If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
The accuracy in replication is incredible. I wonder if the same tools were used in manufacturing or if they re-tooled. What was the cost comparison like? Expensive? Competitive? Cheap? (What would the shipping costs be like? j/k) Good find!
They were pretty incredible fakes for sure. Not sure about the tooling. My guess is that they made there own tooling because they had some derivative designs that would require dif. tools. I didn’t ask a lot about price but the green fiberglass chair above was about $200 usd.
Haha! I love it! thats so funny, i love Asia, Totally recommend Bali! Oh and love the look of the new site!
Dude, that is hilarious!
I think its hilarious that the knocked-off “toy chair” by Philippe became the “toilet chair”. It almost makes it seems like they thought about what they were doing.
Here’s a comment I posted to this item on LinkedIn:
“Adam, your posting on your website is fairly non-committal about this, while at least one other poster just says it’s cool… Elsewhere on this group’s discussions, there is an implied complaint that ADI seems to focus on things like protecting intellectual property rights, to the (presumed) detriment of the interests of young designers (although quite how the reasoning works is not explained).
So, what is your take on this? Is copycatting cool or is it to be condemned? If you adopt a position one way or the other yourself, you may get a discussion going.”
In short, I feel that ripping off someone’s IP is wrong and not fair. Their are far too many quality designers capable of producing excellent original works. I do not see a reason to make an exact copy an existing product. I can’t imagine anyone feeling otherwise. Sorry for coming off too vague in my article.
Good answer, Adam: there is no excuse for counterfeiting, even if it goes by the dubious name of “a tribute to…”. It’s still a rip-off, just by another name.
The problem is that designers (and far too often also their clients) are lethargic about taking out what little legal protection is available. Existing design protection models all leave a lot to be desired, as they tend to protect the styling only and pretend the function doesn’t exist, as though that could all be covered by the inventiveness clause in patents, but there’s a huge grey area between what really can be protected by patents and the mere protection of styling and surface… it’s the “function” part of the “design = form & function” equation. Designers are worse than merely lethargic about demanding changes to these rather useless forms of protection: if anyone else were so negligent of their own interests, they would be a laughing stock, but hey, who cares? Designers are creatives and creatives don’t understand the law, do they? They just complain that it doesn’t function.. so why don’t we get our heads together and design a better one? I’ve been conducting a one-man lobby for years, including at WIPO and OAMI, but the real problem is that I get no backing from designers, so: no critical mass = no political reaction. I’ll put this post up on LinkedIn too…
Adam, if you are surprised by this small shop in Thailand, go to Zhong Shan or Fo Shan in China, you’ll be more shocked. You can find all kinds imitation of designer furniture, lighting, etc., but not in a small shop, in showrooms of thousands square meter just next to the factory where these things are produced… That is really a sight. I am a product designer working in Hong Kong. Recently I found many “underground” shops here selling designer furniture at a incredible low price (half to 30% of original price). After I did some research, these shops import their products from China, where out of factory price is around 1%-5% of the original price…
I missed those shops in China but I will have to check them out next time. It makes you wonder how much of the “designer” furniture you see in restaurants and hotels are actually real! Such an interesting dilemma…