CNN recently profiled Supreme Italia, an EU-based company that’s producing knock-off Supreme goods, legally.
As the story explains, the label has Italian “roots” but is “run through a limited company in the UK.” It also has four physical stores in Spain, products in 1,000 stores in Italy, and plans to expand into China, Portugal, Serbia, and the Gulf States.
And, it’s the reason that whole Samsung debacle went down last year: Samsung made headlines at the end of 2018 when it announced a collaboration with Supreme, which they then called off after learning that they had, in fact, been negotiating with Supreme Italia.
The real Supreme — often the defendant, rarely the plaintiff — has sued those behind Supreme Italia, with the company’s attorney claiming that what it’s doing is “fraud… against the consumer,” and an example of “undue profit off the reputation of another brand.”
And while it would seem like a fairly simple case — Supreme Italia is basically a cover band posing as the real thing and booking concerts in places the real band isn’t touring — it’s actually much more complicated than that, because of Supreme’s own past appropriation(s).
According to CNN, “there are weaknesses in Supreme’s all-powerful logo and brand,” mostly because “the color and typeface of Supreme’s logo… is precisely the same combination used by conceptual artist Barbara Kruger since the 1980s,” making Supreme’s proprietary claim a bit tenuous. Plus, international IP laws have never been the easiest to enforce.
So, try as Supreme may, Supreme Italia and its knockoffs probably won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
You can read more about it at CNN.
