Burning Question: How Did McDonald's Wind Up as Haute Couture?

Katy Perry, Rita Ora, and Amber Rose

Tons of celebrities are wearing Moschino's new McDonald's-themed collection. How did designer Jeremy Scott get away with it? Is the fast food chain trying to get into the fashion business, and if so, why?

These are fashion people we're talking about. Fashion people don't talk to lowly Internet serfs like us — unless those people also hold standing tickets to the Met Ball or have Beyoncé on speed dial or own at least one custom pair of Charlotte Olympia kitty-cat shoes. We do not have any of those things.

But this I know: McDonald’s didn’t just sit back and let Jeremy Scott reshape its logo to look like a little heart, not without some sort of formal permission; some money; and, I suspect, a healthy dose of creative control. After all, Scott has faced accusations of plagiarizing in the past; in 2013, Santa Cruz Skateboards schooled him so hard for allegedly stealing their designs that he agreed to cease production of a whole collection. With that history in play, Moschino would never tap Scott to spoof a multi-billion-dollar behemoth brand without some assurance against more legal hijinks.

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In case you’ve missed Scott's new collection for Moschino, here's a primer: It's vintage Scott all the way — gimcracky fashion meets pop art meets obvious media baiting. The line includes dresses clearly inspired by McDonald's uniforms and tops; handbags shaped like Happy Meal boxes; and suits in the fast food chain's signature palette of mustard yellow and ketchup red. Nearly everything is tagged with a heart-shaped logo that unmistakably harkens to the Golden Arches.

(Getty Images)

The collection also pays homage to Hershey's chocolate bars, in a form of an oddly elegant ball gown, and "SpongeBob Square Pants." Scott is either making a deadly serious statement about the food-toy industrial complex... or it's just trolling us all. Or maybe both.

Whatever Scott had in mind, his Fall 2014 offering is already a huge hit among our less tasteful tastemakers; Rita Ora has sported Scott's $350 megatee-slash-dress and quilted handbag ($1,265) on the cover of a magazine called — how’s this for kismet? — Ketchup. Paparazzi shot Amber Rose wearing the same dress in West Hollywood this week. Katy Perry also has sported pieces from the collection on a recent red carpet.

A representative for Scott and Moschino didn’t return repeated requests for comment. For its part, a McDonald's flack tells me that the collection "is not a collaboration." But "there is a licensing agreement in place."

"With 35,000 restaurants in 120 countries, we like to celebrate McDonald's as part of the fabric that weaves the world together," the megabrand added in a statement. "Apparently Moschino agrees, as they've featured our iconic brand on the catwalk."

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The licensing partnership doesn't surprise Jeffrey R. Glassman, an intellectual property specialist at the firm Ervin Cohen & Jessup. In fact, he says, don’t be surprised if McDonald's commanded at least some say over the final look of the designs, as well as a generous cut of sales. A typical licensing deal earmarks 5 percent of sales for the license holder. But for a behemoth like McDonald's or SpongeBob, Moschino may be sharing a larger chunk than that, Glassman speculates.

 "SpongeBob alone is an $8 billion brand," Glassman points out.

Rodarte's Star Wars-inspired dresses (Getty Images)

The fashion industry cuts these kinds of deals all the time. Remember those Pabst Blue Ribbon pants that Bill Murray wore to a recent golf outing? The ones by Loudmouth Golf? How about Rodarte's most recent collection, which featured still images from "Star Wars" on their gowns? Both of those creations also were made in collaboration with the license holders.

Now if only we could get a Chanel collection with, say, the Yahoo logo on it…