What's so great about copyright if fashion designers do well without it?

One of the traditional justifications for copyright law is that without it, creative people will be discouraged from creating.  The fashion industry is a counterexample, because it has flourished in the absence of copyright protection for clothing (clothes are considered too "utilitarian" to qualify for copyright protection, in the same way that a recipe or a park bench can't be copyrighted, no matter how fanciful).  Of course, creativity has never needed copyright law, which was only recently invented anyway.  Johanna Blakley, in her entertaining presentation on copyright and the fashion industry, displays a chart that shows that revenues in "low IP" industries such as clothing and food dwarf those of "high IP" industries such as music, books and films.  But the clothing and food industries also have going for them the fact that without clothing and food, we'd all be naked and starving: their survival in the absence of copyright protection is no surprise.  Revenues aside, Ms. Blakley has some interesting observations about how the lack of copyright protection in the fashion industry may contribute to increased innovation.

But the big unanswered question in this presentation on fashion and the law is why Ms. Blakley is wearing a jacket that looks like it was inspired by a bullet-proof vest.