Thom Browne must be a fan of that Edwyn Collins 1997 track, "Adidas World", that goes, "Adi Dassler, have you heard the news? Gonna stomp all over your three-stripe shoes". The infamous signature stripes are currently the cause of many worries for Browne.
In 2021, the German sportswear giant filed suit in a New York court against the American designer. The brand claimed that Browne's "Four Bar Design", mainly employed around calves, thighs, and upper arms on his garments, was a trademark infringement and a dilution of Adidas' three-stripe parallel mark, a staple of the brand since the 1940s. As a consequence, Adidas sought injunctive relief and damages allegedly stating that Browne was generating confusion in consumers.
The lawsuit claimed: "Thom Browne sportswear and footwear feature three and four stripes in ways that adidas claims is likely to deceive, confuse, and mislead actual and prospective purchasers of adidas’s merchandise".
The label also mentioned the fact that Browne had expanded into sportswear and athleisure, launching shell jackets, compression running gear, T-shirts, hoodies and track pants, all featuring four parallel stripes, and that it had entered a partnership (for off-the-field apparel, plus a Charitable F.C. Barcelona Capsule Collaboration) in 2018 with the formerly Adidas-sponsored F.C. Barcelona soccer team and its star athlete at the time, Lionel Messi. Browne also created custom tailored looks for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA during their Playoffs in 2018 (Adidas also had a relationship with them).
When Adidas filed the suit, Browne explained how, when over 10 years ago it came to the attention of the brand that he was using a red, white and blue three-striped trademark (inspired, according to Browne, to the varsity and collegiate sports uniforms), the German sportswear company approached Browne's then chief executive officer and suggested that the designer added a fourth stripe to avoid confusion with Adidas' products. The fourth stripe was agreed in 2007 and first appeared in 2008. Since then, Adidas did not object the use of the four stripes in Browne's garments until 2021 when, considering maybe Browne's successes, it decided to file suit.
In the meantime, Browne launched a suit against Adidas in a London court, asking to cancel over 20 Adidas' UK trademarks for its three-stripe design that, according to Browne should be invalidated due to a lack of distinctiveness and/or non-use for at least five years.
Earlier on this week, Browne, wearing his signature shrunken jacket and tie, knit cardigan, brogues, and tailored suit shorts above the knee to show four-bar-striped socks, went to a Manhattan's Southern District Court New York City for the hearing of the case that will be decided by a jury.
Adidas' attorney R. Charles Henn Jr. of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, explained the jury that the three-stripe mark has been used in the U.S. since 1952 all over the brand's products, including track pants, T-shirts, jackets and sneakers. Henn also showed evidence with a product survey: 2,400 consumers were shown images of Thom Browne's striped products and 26.9 percent thought they were made by Adidas. Yet, insisting on this point for Adidas may be tricky to prove, considering that, quite often, consumers are pretty savvy and the price of an item would easily reveal them if that was designed by Adidas or by Thom Browne.
Thom Browne's attorney, Robert T. Maldonado of Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks PC, highlighted how his client's four parallel horizontal bars on the sleeves or pant legs as well as its grosgrain tag on the garments, are different from Adidas' three stripes. But maybe the winning strategy in this case would be to put emphasis on clever consumers who would easily spot differences between products and on the fact that Adidas never took any action for over 10 years. Besides, Browne's attorney may benefit for some sound research on stripes, highlighting a core difference between Adidas' dynamic stripes, metaphor for athletic performance, and Browne's, that, moving from the college tradition, constitute a sort of aristocratic stripe pattern pertaining to the heraldic dimension (maybe Browne's attorneys should get the help of Michel Pastoureau, author of the volume The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric, to solve the case).
The trial should last around two weeks: Browne will also have to testify, so this will be the first glamorous court case of the year (and you can bet that 2023 will be, as usually, legally exciting considering that copyright and trademark infringement cases in fashion increase as the years pass...). If Adidas wins the case there will be significant repercussions on Browne's company and on its majority owner Ermenegildo Zegna as the designer will not be able to distribute, market or sell apparel and footwear with his signature stripes. Adidas is also seeking damages: $867,225 - the amount that it says the company would have received in licensing fees from Thom Browne Inc., if they had collaborated - plus $7 million in profits, the amount allegedly made by the American fashion brand selling apparel and footwear with stripes.
Stripes keep on being a pattern of contention: stripes led indeed to some complex trademark infringement cases in the last few years between different brands such as Off-White, Paige and Helly Hansen.
Yet Adidas remains the most obsessed brand when it comes to lawsuits about three-striped patterns: the company previously filed suit against Ralph Lauren (2004), Marc Jacobs (2015), Forever 21 (2017), Puma (2017), J.Crew (2019) and others. Surprisingly, Adidas didn't sue the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's order, but that's probably because they were smart and fast enough to copyright their triple-blue border sari.
Comments