01/05/2026
Exactly twenty years ago, I went public with “fashion law” as a field– after many conversations and years of research stretching back to before the millennium.
Lots of lawyers laughed.
But because of you, the idea has gone global,
and the fashion industry now has a legal infrastructure to support and guide it.
This year’s Fashion Law Institute holiday theme is personal, combining hope for the future with a nod to “lux et veritas” or “light and truth” – the motto of the university where once I sat in a law school class and wondered about the legal status of fashion.
Peace and light,
Susan Scafidi
All of us at the Fashion Law Institute are excited to see you in the new year,
including at these upcoming events:
Inside Out 11: Fashion’s In-House Counsel
Friday, February 6, 2026
16th Annual Symposium
Friday, April 17, 2026
Applications for our next Fashion Law Bootcamp in New York are also open!
Thanks to the many generous donors and supporters who have made fashion law a reality, and to the following Fashion Law Pop-Up Clinic hosts (in addition to the many talented attorneys who volunteered their time):
Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman
Dentons
Kilpatrick
Kirkland & Ellis
New York City Bar Fashion Law Committee
10/21/2025
Join us next Tuesday evening for “Death, Divorce, & Drama: Managing the Personal and Professional in Fashion”!
Registration link in bio
DATE: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
TIME: 6:30-7:45 pm (reception starting at 6:00 pm)
PLACE: Costantino Room, 2nd Floor, Fordham Law School, 150 W. 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023
NYS CLE: 1.5 hours ethics and professionalism
SPEAKERS:
* Nick Barnhorst, Fresh
* Robert Stephan Cohen, Cohen Clair Lans Greifer & Simpson
* Jeff Trexler, Fashion Ethics, Sustainability, & Development Professor
* Gary Wassner, Hilldun
Fashion brands are often personal endeavors, founded, funded, and run by friends, lovers, and family members. Creative partnerships are a longstanding source of success in the industry, but the connections between the personal and the pruofessional also give rise to complications, including questions of death and succession, fallout from a divorce or breakup, and daily dramas. The off-the-runway events that were the talk of the industry during the recent fashion month — Giorgio Armani’s unusual will and the Natalie Massenet / Erik Torstensson split — are the most prominent recent examples, but these issues eventually affect many fashion designers and companies. How can the personal and the professional coexist productively? What makes succession successful? What are the official and unofficial roles of attorneys when the bosses’ boardrooms and the bedrooms are effectively the same space? What happens when employees, board members, and counsel are caught in interpersonal or intergenerational crossfire? Will European-style family businesses, American-influenced independent investment, or some other form be the future of fashion?
