NFL player Travis Kelce stepped out in a colorful silk top a small over a year ago, complete with a large Chanel brand and two barrel-chested pink flamingo emblazoned on the bottom.
The design was upcycled from classic Chanel headbands by artist Logan Horne, whose company, J. Logan Home, specializes in refashioning history comfort accessories. His pieces, which retail at close to $3, 000 each, have also been worn by the musicians Dua Lipa and 2 Chainz and are sold at stores including Farfetch, Kith and The Webster. They’ve even caught the attention of the European luxury titan’s legal department.
In a cease-and-desist email, Chanel’s attorneys asked Horne to cease selling products emblazoned with its brand and other brand symbols in February.
It’s the most recent case in a long line of cases that pit upcycling against established standards of brand security.
Susan Scafidi, the leader of the Fashion Law Institute, said, “We really have these two principles that place in different information. (Upcycling) is absolutely risky, despite the fact that it is trending and ethical.”
Why is upcycling provocative?
Chanel’s objection to J. Logan Home’s designs isn’t exactly a bolt from the blue.
Big luxury companies have long been wary of the secondary market because it could harm their carefully controlled grip on company distribution and picture, cannibalize sales, and promote counterfeiting.
Due to the rapid expansion of online selling platforms, this pressure has been prominent over the past ten years. Some manufacturers have begun to embrace the space with tentativeness, but others have remained optimistic. In particular, Chanel has prosecuted well-known individuals who it claims are selling fake goods and using its company without permission.
Earlier this year, the company won a significant victory when a New York court awarded it $4 million in damage in a lawsuit brought against the selling company What Goes Around Comes Around. The RealReal and The RealReal are currently having a distinct legal dispute.
Upcycling on a smaller size has received a lesser amount of attention. However, the trend has grown more common, largely due to the demand for logo-heavy streetwear, greater availability to vintage goods and deadstock fabrics, and a growing need for effectively operated clothing.
As a result of this, there are becoming more and more trademark and copyright infringement issues aimed at upcyclers from brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
In a Texas lawsuit involving a company that sold repurposed Vuitton items in 2022, Louis Vuitton secured a $603,000 payout and continuous order. Levi’s sued French brand Coperni last year, alleging that it was using pocket lace and fabric tabs that resembled the well-known denim label in some way. The price of such items, alongside things that had really been upcycled from Levi’s jeans without approval, created more danger of customer confusion, the company argued.
When Business of Fashion reached both companies, neither one of them apologised.
Does waste encroach on brands’ trademarks?
Legal experts believe that the disputes reflect reasonable trademark and copyright issues, but they also raise questions about how far these protections may go when in conflict with broader sustainability objectives.
“It is a gray place within the law”, said Scafidi. “Companies have no doubts a constitutional foot to support.” The issue is with how well-clad it is.
When a company sells an item, it becomes open to resale or redistribution by third parties, in common. But this concept, known as the earliest- sales theory or trademark exhaustion, does not use if an item has been reworked or embellished, lawyers said.
Upcyclers can take precautions, such as avoiding prominent logo use, or letting customers know explicitly that reworked products are not affiliated with the brands they reference (a strategy J. Logan Home took). According to attorneys, these methods may not be enough to refute claims that rights or trademark infringement.
Although the legal frameworks for protecting businesses’ intellectual property are well established, it hasn’t really been tested whether upcycling’s sustainability advantages should be weighed against these frameworks.
” If we want to shift from a straight to a round business, we need to upcycle”, said Irene Calboli, a professor of law at Texas A&M University. It is wrong to ignore the fact that intellectual home laws prevent those who want to discard or upcycle.
Chanel emphasized its function with L’Atelier des Matières, which recycles deadstock and unused items from extravagance and premium brands, as it is paying close attention to sustainability issues.
The company stated in a statement that “upcycling is a good pattern that we continue to explore, and we have always been mindful of the need to strike a balance between preserving the privileges of our product and the freedom of others to produce and trade freely.” Nevertheless, “we take the steps we deem necessary to protect our rights when we occasionally use elements that are stamped with the Chanel brand as an unauthorized misappropriation of our copyrights.”
Brands making popular usage of logos are not just the target of the wider authorized crackdown either.
Batsheva Grass practiced rights before becoming a well-known designer in New York. So it shocks her that she was the subject of a cease-and-desist text from a major fashion house after a limited number of dresses were made of Indian deadstock material. The print she used, despite having no obvious logo, was intended for a larger player who didn’t want to see it copied elsewhere, it turned out.
Because I assumed it was some great vintage fruit print, it turned out to be some sort of junky commercial print, Hay said, “I was really humiliated and horrified.” She just removed the three gowns she hadn’t already sold from her website in order to avoid the time and expense involved in fighting the situation.
What does this mean for the future of recycle?
Horne says he can’t afford to fight Chanel, which has threatened to seek statutory damages of $2 million per mark, disgorgement of all profits and payment of its attorney’s fees if he doesn’t stop selling products carrying the company’s branding, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Business of Fashion.
Otherwise, he said he’s looking at to tilt his company while continuing to find innovative ways to address the company’s issues with spend and over- manufacturing. An established brand would be a great opportunity to collaborate on an upcycled set.
“As much as I believe in my mission … I’m not trying to go bankrupt going to battle with Chanel”, he said.
According to industry experts, the recent wave of cases highlights a more general adjusting to the new models that are being developed. Some large manufacturers, like Prada, Gucci and really Levi’s, have already dabbled with waste series and applications of their own. Anna Foster, who runs the refashioned brand E. L. V. Denim, has partnered with companies including Gabriela Hearst and The Outnet to help upcycle excess inventory. These days, she says she’s having about a conversation a week with brands interested in exploring collaboration, but the industry moves slowly.
Meanwhile, politics may be moving at a faster speed, creating different challenges for brands. With new regulations that would make brands more accountable for handling old clothes and excess inventory in both Europe and the US, consumers and policy makers are becoming more aware of the enormous volumes of waste created by the fashion industry.
“We really are at a point where we might get a result in court that’s not what we got in social media,” said Scafidi. “It’s that tension that really needs to be resolved.”