When Samsung revealed, late 2018, that he was collaborating with the US cult supreme streetwear brand, the surprise was great.
The announcement was made at the launch of the Samsung Galaxy A8 smartphone in Beijing, where the logos of the Korean technology giant and the New York skateboard brand unexpectedly shared a giant screen. Two men, presented as supreme leaders, unveiled ambitious plans for their company in China, including an inaugural event at the Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Arena and a seven-storey flagship store in the capital. Titles soon followed.
But there was a problem: it was not supreme. Not the one based in New York, at least.
It was rather an entity known as Supreme Italia. With roots in Italy, the label is run by a public limited company in the UK and has opened four physical stores in Spain.
Supreme New York quickly denounced the brand as a "counterfeit organization". Samsung has initially stood firm, though. In an article deleted since on the Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo, the tech company has always known that she was working with Supreme Italia, which was the legitimate owner of the Supreme brand in China.
Shortly after, Samsung said it was back on its collaboration and canceled it completely. But Supreme Italia, which denies being a counterfeit operation, was already planning to expand into China and beyond.
Birth of a cult brand
Supreme debuted as a modest skate shop in Lower Manhattan, opened by American-British entrepreneur James Jebbia in 1994. It has since become one of the most sought after brands in fashion, with collaborations with personalities such as Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, Nike and Timberland. The label is valued at over a billion dollars, after the private equity firm The Carlyle Group has acquired a 50% stake for $ 500 million in 2017.
A Louis Vuitton trunk with the Supreme logo. Credit: Chesnot / Getty Images Europe / Getty Images
Jebbia has rewritten the rules for streetwear brands, reinforcing Supreme's reputation for hype and the scarcity of social media. His clothes can only be purchased online or through a network of just 11 stores worldwide: one in Los Angeles, Paris and London, two in New York and six in Japan.
It's in Japan that Supreme has come up with a sales tactic known as "drop", of releasing a limited amount of new clothing every week, rather than a complete collection every season. . This strategy, now largely taken up by traditional fashion brands, has resulted in long queues at Supreme stores and fueled the online resale markets where prices have skyrocketed.
"Over time, this has become a real frenzy," said David Fischer, founder of the streetwear and lifestyle website, Highsnobiety. "It's become a huge event, where Supreme fans from all over the world line up in front of Supreme stores to get their hands on the latest product – it's not enough to queue up to buy a new product. It's just as much to be there with a community of which you are part ".
The most valuable asset of Supreme is undoubtedly its simple logo, a red rectangle bearing the word "Supreme", on which the Lyst fashion platform crowned the most powerful logo of the industry in 2018. It can turn almost anything into a collectible object. The latest collection of Supreme includes a branded water pistol, a coffee maker, a drum kit, a snorkeling mask and even bandages. When the New York Post aired Supreme's cover in August 2018, newsstands sold early in the morning; MetroCards Supreme New York cards dating from 2017 are currently listed on eBay at a price of $ 500. But there are weaknesses in Supreme's all-powerful logo and the brand Supreme Italia has used to its advantage.
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Supreme New York's Spring-Summer 19 collection includes many offbeat collectibles such as Band-Aids. Credit: Supremenewyork.com
A difficult brand
The color and font of the Supreme logo – red, with white lettering in a font called Futura Heavy Oblique – correspond exactly to the combination used by conceptual artist Barbara Kruger since the 1980s.
The Supreme logo was hastily designed to be affixed to the t-shirts at the opening of the first store in 1994. By the very admission of the company, he was directly influenced by Kruger's work. . Three years later, the brand even reproduced Kruger's work "Untitled (I'm shopping for myself)", published in 1987 by a consumer – echoing Descartes' seventeenth-century maxim, "I think I am" – on a phrase holder t-shirt with the word "supreme".
Shannon Finney / Getty Images North America / Getty Images
In fact, the company has a long history of playing with other brands' drawings without permission. Almost two decades before his collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2017, Supreme received a letter of cessation and abstention from the French fashion house for using its iconic monogram on a series of products, including skateboards, which have then been recalled.
But the label has now become the target of imitation. In 2009, Jebbia told Interview magazine that "Supreme was not supposed to be a brand … it's a good name, but it's hard to argue as a brand." Chapter 4, the company that operates under the name Supreme, did not register its trademark in the United States until 2012. Nearly a year later, the company commenced legal action against that company. mark of $ 10 million after using a parody emblem "Supreme Bitch" on some of its products. The parties settled amicably.
Kruger, however, never sued Supreme ("I do not have a font," she told The Cut in 2017). But the irony that his anti-consumerist art is used to sell clothes is not lost. In 2017, the artist staged a show titled "Untitled (The Drop)", which featured a store offering Supreme-esque products bearing phrases such as "Do not fool" and " Buy it, give it up. "
A Supreme under another name
In 2017, the company was busy defending itself more than mockery. Supreme is now one of the most counterfeit brands in the world and its counterfeits are among the most sought after.
The case of Supreme Italia is however more complex, the mark being often designated by the term of "false legal" used by the lawyers of the marks.
"It is a practice to register a trademark in a particular country before the original owner of that trademark has the opportunity to do so," said Alessandro Balduzzi, trademark attorney at Legale Costa Creta – Bugnion Studio. Italy.
Giovanni Casucci, a lawyer in Chapter 4 who pleads the ongoing case in Italy, questions the very principle of the term: "I find it very funny because it is an oxymoron, a completely contradictory definition." can not be legal if you're wrong, "he said in a phone interview.
Instead, Casucci draws a parallel between Supreme Italia's actions and cybersquatting, the practice of registering domain names that are similar or identical to popular brand names, in order to sell them later at a profit. "This is a phenomenon that was strongly criticized 20 years ago and is now a flagrant abuse," he said.
Supreme Italia claims to have been launched in 2012, but it first made its mark on social media in 2016 at Pitti Uomo, an international men's fashion fair in Florence, Italy. The images of the event showed the hoodies and t-shirts of the brand wearing the big versions of the famous red logo.
Chapter 4 is aware of this. In 2017, she filed a lawsuit against Supreme Italia, or more precisely with its two companies: an Italian company that manufactured and sold clothes online and in licensed stores, and a private British company called International Brand Firm ( IBF), which had registered and licensed the brand in Italy and other countries. IBF is essentially the business of the Supreme Italia brand and its ramifications.
The Milan High Court ruled in favor of Chapter 4 twice, in January and April 2017, by issuing an injunction rendering the operations of Supreme Italia illegal in Italy. A final decision could, however, take years to come to fruition. Supreme Italia's lawyers have already appealed (and lost) and plan to appeal again. Simona Lavagnini, a lawyer at LGV Avvocati in Milan, who pleaded the case in Italy for IBF, told CNN that the case could eventually reach the country's Supreme Court.
To be effective, a "fake legal" must register a mark before the original mark. But IBF has not filed a trademark with Italian authorities before November 18, 2015, more than a month after Chapter 4. This is one of the reasons why the court Is tidy on the side of the Supreme of origin.
"Another reason was the unfair competition," said Balduzzi, "because not only (Supreme Italia) produced clothes using a brand that was not their own, but they also acted in the market as they were. the legitimate owners of the mark. "
Despite this, Lavagnini contends that Supreme Italia is "not a copy", claiming that when IBF filed its trademark, the existing registration of Chapter 4 did not appear yet in online searches. She also thinks that the word "Supreme" is too generic to be registered as a trademark. "Our assertion is that Supreme is a word (usually) used to refer to the quality of a product, such as" super "," extra "or" extraordinary "," she said at a news conference. telephone interview. "Super" is actually the root of supreme and is considered by Italian case law as a classic case of descriptive mark, which can not be registered but must be free for all competitors in the market. "
However, these requests were rejected by the Milan court. The judges held that the supreme mark of Chapter 4 was sufficiently well known in Italy to acquire a "secondary meaning" and be considered a mark of fact, even in the absence of advertising or physical stores.
More luck in Spain
A similar legal case also took place in October 2018 in Spain, where IBF registered another brand: Supreme Spain. But here, things went very differently. A Barcelona court ruled in favor of IBF because, in this case, it had registered its mark before Chapter 4.
Chapter 4 used the "secondary sense" argument that had been successful in Italy, but in Spain it did not work. As explained by the brand's lawyer, Balduzzi: "The burden of proof can be very cumbersome and difficult to overcome." The decision has since been appealed and another decision is expected in the next two months, according to Casucci.
As a result, Supreme Spain continues to operate its own website, which offers about a hundred clothing, as well as accessories, and shipments in some 40 European countries. Perhaps more particularly, it also has four physical stores, in Madrid, Barcelona, Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca. The logo is different – black text on yellow, with the word "Spain" on the bottom – but the clothes still have the classic red box motif, among other familiar variants.
"The fact is that there is no distribution of physical products in Italy or Spain," said IBF lawyer Lavagnini, referring to Supreme New Products. York. "There are some stores in privileged European countries like the UK and France, then there is a website on which it is theoretically possible to acquire the products, but they are selling immediately … And the only one way to buy the product is to access the websites of these resellers where the products are being sold at much higher prices. "The official Instagram account of IBF states" We are against the illegal and immoral practice of the resale ".
The Chapter 4 lawyer, Casucci, dismisses this argument as being "the frivolous argument of a free rider. They are not Robin Hood". He acknowledges that the operation Supreme Spain is legitimate, but adds "my impression is that there is a typical case of undue profit derived from the reputation of another brand".
IBF has robbed the Supreme trademarks in several other territories. Listings on the TMView brand website show that the company has filed registrations in 67 countries, mainly in Europe and Africa, as well as in China. IBF "works with the Supreme brand in nearly 90 countries," CNN representative Anna Boccoli told reporters.
Casucci believes that the IBF approach is in bad faith and in violation of the Paris Convention, one of the first intellectual property treaties ever signed, which protects "notorious trademarks" in 177 countries even in the absence of local presence.
A customer is wearing a Supreme / Louis Vuitton hoodie in front of a Louis Vuitton store in Miami. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images North America / Getty Images
A search on the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WTO) has listed 28 entries classified by IBF for the word Supreme. They include Supreme Sailing, Supreme Underwear, Supreme Toyschool, Supreme Supreme, Supreme Sport Supreme, Supreme Optical Wear and Supreme Skate Snow Wear.
According to Casucci, this volume of recordings would have cost "tens if not hundreds of thousands of euros" and could be motivated only by "the hope of stealing certain markets or at least to penetrate them in a parallel way".
The man behind Supreme Italia
Michele Di Pierro, director of the IBF, declined the CNN interview request. According to her public relations representative, Anna Boccoli, he is a private man who avoids the spotlight.
In a phone interview, Boccoli said that Di Pierro – which she claims to know for many years – is the talk of Barletta, her hometown of southern Italy, because her brand "is worth what it's worth internationally. "According to publicly available documents, IBF has reported sales of around £ 514,000 ($ 682,000) in 2017, compared to £ 173,000 ($ 230,000) in 2007. 39, previous year.
Boccoli described Di Pierro as "an energetic man who follows his instinct", adding that he frequently traveled to China. He also produces clothes for other fashion brands, which Boccoli has "acquired regularly". These include Airwalk, VisionStreetWear and Pan Am, which were presented at Pitti Uomo in early 2019.
The idea of Supreme Italia was born in 2012 and started with a lot of test t-shirts, according to Boccoli. The plan was "spontaneous", she said, and Di Pierro "did not want to make an Italian copy, but rather of his own project". Prior to the Milan court's decision, Supreme Italia was distributing its products in 1,000 stores in Italy, although it did not, said Boccoli.
According to Boccoli, the local distributor of IBF, which directly negotiated the cancellation of the Samsung deal, plans to open 60 stores in the country over the next two years. In fact, she opened an IBF licensed Supreme store in Shanghai in early March, she confirmed, and a second will open soon. In a written statement sent to CNN after our phone interview, Casucci said: "Chapter 4 / Supreme has taken action in China against the organization of IBF / Supreme Italia counterfeits and their Chinese partners and owners with regard to IBF mimics Supreme, sells counterfeit products and misleads law enforcement, reporters and even companies like Samsung who have not assumed their absolute due diligence in this counterfeit operation . "
Boccoli also said that more IBF-certified stores would open in countries around the world, starting with Serbia, Belarus, Cyprus, Portugal and the Gulf States.
How do clothes compare?
To compare IBF's creations with those of Supreme, CNN recently ordered three items in Supreme Spain: a black hoodie with a large red box logo, a SupremeKids t-shirt with what appeared to be the Mickey Mouse's ears and hands, and a men's t-shirt with an embroidered logo.
Both orders – shipped from Italy and Spain – were delivered to London by mail in a few days. They did not include any printed invoice or return label. According to Yuri Mishka, moderator of one of the main reseller communities on Facebook in Italy (which is not affiliated with either Supreme New York or Supreme Italia), there are differences between these clothes and the original clothes. The logo of the black hoodie is much larger than the classic Supreme model it looks like, and is printed rather than embroidered. In contrast, the men 's t – shirt features an embroidered logo rather than that of the original. The "SupremeKids" t-shirt seems to refer to a 2009 collaboration between Supreme and Disney, although it is a heavily modified drawing that does not show Mickey Mouse in its entirety.
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CNN bought this Supreme Spain hoodie online in mid-February 2019. Credit: Sarah Tilotta
Luigi Goglia, another IBF lawyer, said that the trade in Spain was "not only legitimate, but more than legitimate," pointing out that the design of clothing "is totally different, it's another concept of fashion".
The care labels all indicate that the items are made in Italy and carry the yellow "Supreme Spain" logo, as well as references to IBF trademark registrations, a hologram with a serial number and flags of 50 countries , including the territories where IBF has registered trademarks. IBF confirmed that Supreme Spain manufactured clothing in Italy and accessories in China, while the original Supreme products were manufactured mainly in the United States and Canada.
Prices also differ. A Supreme logo hoodie priced at $ 148, but up to $ 450 in the resale market, according to Mishka, while that of Supreme Spain cost $ 71.20 (about $ 80).
Left: A New York hoodie from StockX Online Reseller. Right: a hoodie on sale on the website of Supreme Spain. Credit: StockX / Supreme Spain / John General
A loss in Europe
Citing its trademark registrations in Italy and Spain, IBF is claiming a new victory against Chapter 4: in April 2018, the European Union's Intellectual Property Office opposed the request mark of Chapter 4 in Europe a year ago. Chapter 4 has since appealed and a decision is still under review.
If the decision is rescinded, the registration of the mark by Supreme would concern the whole of the European Union, which would allow the company to save time and effort in filing a claim distinct in each country. But despite what will probably be a stormy battle, Casucci does not think that IBF has had a significant impact on Chapter 4's activities yet.
"It's not a threat, frankly, at all … it's really a boring thing, something that can not be tolerated, because in some markets, the less informed, there is a risk that some consumers are deceived by buying this product thinking that it is the original.
"And it's a fraud – against the consumer, not against Supreme and Chapter 4"
Samsung has not responded to CNN's request to comment on this article.
