Thursday, July 7, 2011

AATP Adventures in Chinatown

There's this very rundown and shabby textile centre at our local Chinatown. But looks can be deceiving! Despite its rather unsavoury outer appearance, the centre possesses several shops that sell anything from cottons, satins, organzas, silks to novelty fabrics in all sizes, colours and prices.

I went there yesterday to source for something suitable to make a Regency dress for attending the Jane Austen Festival and at one particular shop, my attention was suddenly riveted to a bolt of cloth, with a very familiar print and logo indeed...

Name of the Rose print complete with Alice and the Pirates logo!? Sneaky photo that I took with my hp on the spot.

I was vastly amused to find a well-known lolita brand print in a small little Chinatown textile shop to say the least. The quality of the cloth is actually pretty good and so is the printing so I have a suspicion that this might really actually be the same cloth that AATP used for their Name of the Rose series and not a replica. Furthermore, the shop carried the black/red and black/blue colourways PLUS another AATP print...Alice's Never Voyage print in grey/blue/black! Another print! 

In case anyone is wondering, no I didn't buy any, lol. I might have, if only for the fun of owning an loli print found in a local shop, although after buying, it probably would have just sat around my room. And the cloth doesn't come that cheaply either. It's about US$18-20/metre.

As for copyright issues and brand ownership, they've been discussed to death on the egl comm so I won't go into it. Some people are okay with replicas and some aren't. But if you do decide to wear a replica, just be prepared to accept any criticism or hostile flak that might come your way from doing so.

Amazing what one might discover in one's Chinatown, eh?

2 comments:

  1. Companies often sell the surplus fabrics to somewhere remote. Here in Finland you can find Hugo Boss and other's quality fabrics in eurokangas-fabric stores.

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  2. Oh that's interesting. Just quite surprising to find actual brand cloth in the local Chinatown district tho, lol.

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