Sponeed.....
But seriously, it's your point about a designer's or originator's claim that interests me. For team kit, I imagine that what's salient to its identity as such - the arrangement of sponsors' logos on the panels and background colors, etc. - is work-for-hire, not something a designer ever had any independent claim to, and the entity for which the work was done is, in many cases, defunct. It seems most unlikely that the heirs or assigns, if there are any, would have much if any claim. After all, while Acqua & Sapone are still alive and well as a chain of beauty & hygiene stores (aka "drugstores"), they no longer have any meaningful connection to cycling;
the team - the would-be owner of the design - is completely defunct. One might argue that there isn't any entity at all with a meaningful claim to the design of the Acqua & Sapone team kit. It's questionable whether the original manufacturer of the kit has any current claim to the design, especially if the garments were never sold to anyone but the team to begin with, and if it isn't public domain yet, adverse possession, as it were, by assorted knock-off artists will guarantee that it is soon enough.
Yes, this latter is to be scrupulously avoided. But if the copyright-free and (essentially) public domain stuff is all anyone buys from the folks who distribute such stuff, might they be more readily convinced to avoid the counterfeiting?
It's just a cheap, goofy skinsuit, but I wonder if I should ask an attorney....
