Conversation with Barbara Kolson, Director, The FAME Center
Barbara Kolson, fashion industry attorney and director of The FAME Center at Cardozo Law, discusses the legal frameworks needed to operate a fashion business. She focuses on copyright, trademark and patent law, as well as issues related to entrepreneurship, politics and legal access for women and minorities.
Barbara Kolsun, director of The FAME Center, is a leading fashion industry attorney, a professor of practice of fashion law at Cardozo Law, and co-editor of the seminal text on the subject, Fashion Law – A Guide for Designers, Fashion Executives and Attorneys (Bloomsbury, 2nd Edition, 2014). She is a consultant to fashion companies and has taught at NYU and Fordham Law Schools. Kolsun started the legal departments and was the first General Counsel of Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman and Seven for All Mankind, and was Assistant General Counsel of Westpoint Stevens and Calvin Klein Jeans. While in private practice, her clients included Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.
Kolsun currently consults with fashion companies on various issues, and was honored with lifetime achievement awards in 2015 by both the Luxury Summit in London and the World Trademark Forum at INTA. She has served as Chairman of the Board of the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition and has spoken and been published widely on fashion law around the world. She has been the subject of stories in numerous publications, including the New York Times, and was a consultant in intellectual property to USAID's Start Vietnam program in 2002 and 2004.
Kolsun clerked for the Second Circuit after her graduation from Cardozo in 1982. She received her J.D. from Cardozo Law in 1982 and is a member of the Order of the Coif. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1971 and her experience as a professional singer and actress continues to motivate her fierce efforts to protect artists' and designers' intellectual property rights.
Learn more:Cardozo Law | The FAME Law Center
Hosted by: Christopher Lacy, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design
Produced by: Joshua Williams, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design
Executive Producer:Fashion Consort
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