A Supreme Controversy by Robert Scott

    Fashion is one of the most influential, albeit sometimes overlooked, forms of art and expression in human culture.  Now, I am no one to be considered an expert on fashion (which you would see if you looked at what I wear every day), nor do I have any interest in fashion, but I have still heard of many of the big-name brands.  Louis Vuitton, Timberland, Nike, all household names when it comes to clothing.  Over the past few years, a new brand has been rushed into the public eye: Supreme.  The brand has grown so large that almost anything that has "Supreme" on it becomes a collectible, even band-aids.  With such a large influence, though, there are of course going to be fakes, and that brings us to the recent court cases involving Supreme and Supreme Italia, with Supreme Italia being known as a "legal fake".  This raises a lot of questions.  How did Supreme become so large?  What is Supreme Italia?  What is the grounds for Supreme's lawsuit?
    Supreme started as a small, niche street wear shop in New York.  What turned this humble establishment into a one billion dollar brand is a combination of many different factors.  For one, Supreme has a very limited number of physical stores, with only eleven throughout the globe.  Anybody not living within vicinity of those stores are forced to shop online, where certain items only last so long in stock due to the company's sales method: the "drop".  Using this method, Supreme unveils and sells a limited supply of a new product on about a weekly basis before moving onto the next, creating extreme scarcity and elevating the sell-on price of their products.  The brand also has a very recognizable name and logo, as seen to the right.  To put it simply, their products are in high demand and are in low supply, so prices go up.
    Supreme Italia, in essence, is a knockoff brand of Supreme.  It is a brand that uses the Supreme logo and name in its products, but is instead based out of Italy rather than New York.  Controversy between the New York Supreme and Supreme Italia was seen when tech giant Samsung unveiled their Galaxy A8s in Beijing.  This late 2018 reveal gained hype, as by surprise, some form of Supreme expansion into China was hinted at during the presentation.  This hype was killed fast, though, as it was soon discovered that the Supreme brand partnering with Samsung was not the brand based out of New York, but rather out of Italy.  Following this discovery, Samsung ended up cancelling the collaboration, which lead to a whole lot of legal issues after the fact. 
    Supreme and Supreme Italia had met before in the past.  In 2017, Chapter 4, the company behind Supreme, sued IBF, the company behind Supreme Italia.  IBF claimed that they purchased the trademark to the Supreme brand in Italy before Chapter 4 did, but during the case it was revealed that IBF had not.  This ended in Chapter 4 winning the case, and also winning a second case when IBF made an appeal.  Across the European continent, however, Chapter 4 actually lost a similar case to IBF in Spain over IBF's other brand, Supreme Spain.  In this case, IBF had been able to register the trademark before Chpater 4.
    The case in Spain occurred in October of 2018, and after the Samsung/Supreme Italia failed crossover around that same time, it is likely that the battle between Chapter 4 and IBF will continue.  It is predicted that IBF will try for a second appeal for Supreme Italia, and things will move on from there.  All in all, a lot of controversy is being created over a box with some words in it.

Here's a link with a lot more information: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/supreme-italia-legal-fake/index.html