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Adidas has been accused of threatening the creative freedom of fashion designers by seeking to establish a “monopoly” on clothing featuring stripes, in a London legal battle with luxury brand Thom Browne.
The New York designer faced off against the sportswear group at the High Court on Wednesday, in the latest round of a long-running global dispute over stacks of stripes printed on items such as hoodies and T-shirts.
Thom Browne, whose clothes feature a four-stripe motif, is suing Adidas in an attempt to invalidate trademarks covering the Germany-based company’s three-stripe logo.
Adidas is countersuing the fashion brand. It claims that the purveyor of high-end garments including tight-fitting grey men’s suits — sometimes worn with shorts — has violated its trademarks.
Lawyers representing Adidas told the court on Wednesday that there were “obvious” similarities between its logo — the “iconic identifier” of its brand — and the solid bars used by the US company.
However, Philip Roberts KC, representing Thom Browne, said Adidas had “sought to monopolise” an “abstract generalisation or conceptualisation of three stripes”.
He added: “The breadth of Adidas’ asserted monopoly threatens the basic freedom of fashion designers to design clothing in the manner they wish.”
Browne, 58, wore his signature suit and shorts to the courtroom, where a clothing rack was set up with about two dozen garments for the judge to examine. The designer is regarded as among the most influential designers of the past two decades, and his garments have been sported by stars including basketball player LeBron James and the late David Bowie.
Thom Browne, launched in 2001 with a small “by appointment” shop in the New York’s West Village, originally adopted a three-bar motif on its garments. The company, now a part of the Italian family-controlled Ermenegildo Zegna group, said it had agreed to add a fourth bar after Adidas made a complaint in 2007.
Adidas opposed a number of Thom Browne trademark applications in the EU, UK and US in 2018, and launched legal proceedings against it in the US in 2021. A New York jury found in favour of Thom Browne last year.
Roberts said in written arguments that no other company “should have to face the invidious choice between rolling over and spending millions of pounds defending themselves” that Thom Browne had.
“Despite the millions spent by Adidas on either side of the Atlantic, no evidence of any consumer confusion or deception has come to light,” he added.
He added that Thom Browne’s fabrics and tailoring were of a “different order” to Adidas’s mass-market products, although the judge, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith, questioned how relevant quality would be in the trademark dispute.
Charlotte May KC, for Adidas, said in written arguments there was evidence from some members of the public “who have assumed that Adidas are responsible for or behind goods” bearing Thom Browne’s sign.
She added that the “tipping point” for Adidas had come in 2020, when Thom Browne launched a range of sportswear that “strikes at the heart” of its business.
