Fast fashion is a growing concern for designers, as well as high-end and high street fashion companies due to their widespread network, volumes of sale and structure, which is more complex and sophisticated. The discussion will move from the so-called 'piracy paradox', the phenomenon according to which the fashion industry operates within a low-intellectual property (IP) equilibrium in which copying does not deter innovation and may actually promote it. To a certain extent, copying is tolerated within the fashion industry: fast fashion copies the high street, which copies catwalks; all designers copy from the prior art and higher levels of the fashion hierarchy coordinate in creating trends (eg, a certain colour or pattern for a certain season). Moreover, fast fashion exploits 'planned obsolescence': by releasing many collections throughout a year (many more compared to high-end brands), fast fashion companies push older designs to become obsolete and to fall out of fashion, thus creating a demand for newly generated designs. The discussion will be focused on to what extent, on the one hand, copying can be considered as the 'fuel' of the fashion industry, insofar as copying creates trends and increases high-end and high street fashions appeal and, on the other hand, to what extent fashion companies fight against copying by fast fashion. An analysis of the impact of the time element will follow. The general rapid obsolescence of fashion items makes it less appealing to invest many resources in registering and protecting IP rights, compared with other industries and market fields. This is true both for big high-end fashion houses and, to a wider extent, fast fashion brands. As a consequence, litigation is quite often not the best option: the time necessary to obtain injunctive relief risks making many attempts to stop fast fashion items or recall them from the market completely worthless. Special focus will be given to public and private institutions in the fashion field, as well as the adoption of corporate responsibility rules in order to understand what role they can play and what measures have been implemented so far to mitigate the clash between high-end/high street fashion and fast fashion companies. We would like to involve representatives from luxury and high street fashion companies, as well as institutions such as Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana – the association that coordinates and promotes the development of Italian fashion.