RIDICULE AROUND RITA

Some time ago there were headlines over here, and smaller notices elsewhere, about Ivana Trump suing the Finnish fashion company IVANAhelsinki claiming the later was taking advantage of her name. This was when the IVANAhelsinki collection was presented at the New York fashion week. While many considered it a PR trick from Trump's side, it was considered plain idiocity over here : IVANAhelsinki was founded in the late nineties by Paola Ivana (yes, that's her name too) while Trump registered her name as a trade mark as late as 2002... And back then few even knew about any of the Trumps over here - and even fewer cared. I noticed that some of the non Finnish articles mentioning the case, while over all neutral, were wondering why someone would want to use the Ivana name anyhow as the thing is a bit "old and used already". (To be pointed out is that there seems to be several Ivana-named brands in NY already, like an Ivana Vodka for example). Which shows of bad research of those authors - apart from the facts already mentioned the thing with IVANA helsinki is that the brand of course has nothing to do with any other Ivana than the one designing the clothes, and does not really have any need nor desire to be associated with anything else than itself.

Well, I don't know how the case has continued as the news front has been silent so far. But yesterday a new case made the headlines (something I noticed already has been appearing in posts by many fellow Finnish blogs during the past day too); Adidas has demanded Minna Parikka to withdraw her Rita shoe from the market, claiming the three stripes are copied from the classic Adidas sneaker.

Minna has explained that the three stripes are the ribbons of the bows in front of the shoe, but she still chose to withdraw the boot as "a small entrepreneur stands little chance against a huge corporation". It seems her matching Mistress gloves are also no longer available.

Of course companies and trade marks should watch out for themselves and their copyrighted products and look (for example the Marimekko vs. D&G case was rather obvious), but not by being obsessive - or cocky. I think comparing a high heeled boot from a chick designer to a classic leisure sneaker is, well, ridiculous.

For me those striped boots resembles a covered version of some of her pumps with three or more straps. But never in a lifetime would I have thought of Adidas! What do you think?