- Marjorie van Elven
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Supreme founder James Jebbia has finally vented his frustrations about
Supreme Italia, the Italian company using a loophole in local law to sell
products bearing a strong resemblance to those offered by the American
streetwear brand. “I don’t think another company has really had to deal
with this like we have. This is a whole new level with this criminal
enterprise — these complete impostors and impersonators. This is a company
that was able to convince one of the biggest companies in the world
[Samsung] that they are the real thing”, Jebbia is quoted by Business of
Fashion as saying.
Samsung received backlash in December for announcing a collaboration
with Supreme during a conference in China. However, the company Samsung was
teaming up was actually Supreme Italia, a young business from Barletta,
owned by Trade Direct and licensed to the UK-based International Brands
Firm (IBF). Since the American streetwear label took too long to seek
trademark rights in Italy, Supreme Italia registered activities in the
country under the name “Supreme” and even uses a logo that looks almost
identical to Supreme’s, except the red box is slightly larger. Samsung
decided to terminate the collaboration following the controversy, but did
not say whether it was aware or not that Supreme Italia was a “legal fake”
and not the cult brand from New York.
“People should know that the idea of legal fakes is a complete farce,”
said Jebbia to BoF, comparing the activities of companies like IBF to fake
news. “We don’t do a ton of press and we are quite quiet. These guys are
taking full advantage of that… We haven’t had the time to basically go on
this massive disinformation tirade or press thing that most people would”.
Supreme is known for creating scarcity around its products: instead of
releasing collections, the brand “drops” individual items, usually
announcing them on Instagram with a one-liner as caption. Jebba is also
known for being a rather discreet CEO.
Picture: Supreme Facebook
