Week 7\8 2025 - L'appeal

1) Valentino & Class-Action Lawsuit - Labor Laws

Valentino U.S.A. is clinking coupes with the New York federal court while they leave their employees with Ben and Jerry. And that’s because a New York federal judge shut down all hopes of a class-action payday for former employees’, ruling that their claims of unpaid wages and misclassification were just too all over the place to qualify. The court ruled that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove a single, sweeping policy of wage theft, so they weren't about to hand them a golden ticket to a massive group payout. Individual lawsuits can still happen, but if we’re being honest, going up against Valentino solo is about as fun as wearing 12 inch heels on cobblestones. 

I just know their PR team is drafting a “we value our employees” statement as you’re reading this. While they’re doing that, I’m going to tell you that this lawsuit was filed in 2019, and it accused Valentino of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law, with plaintiffs seeking to represent two groups: full-time employees allegedly denied overtime and freelancers misclassified as independent contractors. The court essentially said that the differences between job roles, pay structures and employment circumstances needed a case-by-case analysis instead of a class-wide ruling. Clearly, Valentino’s still the good guy, they’re just letting the court do the dirty work. Simply put, all shock no therapy for the Valentino employees. To those employees, when you eventually leave and if you start your own line, read between the lines of the NDAs you had to sign and the non-existent overtime pay, and get the full book on how not to treat your employees! 

2) Chanel v. WGACA - Final Judgement

You don’t mess with Chanel trademarks. Once you learn that, you’ll be free. You can get into cigar sommelier-ing or invest in racehorses you’ll never ride for all I care. But I can guarantee you won’t end up like What Goes Around Comes Around (WGACA), which got around learning that what comes around isn’t pretty. The final judgement in the long-standing trademark battle between Chanel and WGACA is finally here, and the court’s ruling wasn’t just strict - it was surgical. Judge Louis Stanton’s ruling includes a permanent injunction barring WGACA from using Chanel’s trademark in a way that suggests affiliation, but let’s talk money; $4 million in statutory damages for pushing fakes and a humiliating $12,739 disgorgement for unauthorized sales. 

Now for the terms, I guess we could say WGACA is now playing in a regulatory straightjacket - no using Chanel’s name, logos, and interlocking CC monograms in marketing materials or store displays. For authenticity claims, it’s easy - no receipts, no deal. And if they do sell a Chanel product, they need a disclaimer stating that WGACA is not affiliated with the Chanel house, making it painfully clear they have zero ties to the maison. This wasn’t  litigation, it was an execution. Anything to make sure everyone understands that the imitation game has never worked, does not work, and will never work. 

3) Lululemon Trademark -  Intellectual Property Law 

No business like the dupe business. It took a while to figure out that there’s more money in licensing than litigation, but Lululemon got the whole “thinking long-term” thing right. The most recent move would be filing a trademark application for “LULULEMON DUPE”. Now are they about to drop a cheaper, in-house “dupe” line to cut resellers at the knees? Or is this just the first step before the lawsuits start flying? Either way, it’s fresh, it’s new, and it’s making the dupe industry sweat more than a hot yoga class. A bold move, considering the real fight isn’t with knockoffs, but with the fact that legally, they can exist.

Let’s not forget they’ve tested the waters before - I’m talking about the “dupe swap” event hosted in Los Angeles in 2023, allowing customers to exchange knockoff Align leggings for authentic pairs. It was a hit, bigger than the pill! The stunt pulled about 1,000 attendees, showing that even dupe lovers can be bought - for the right price. It’s easy really, lure in the dupe buyers, talk the dupe talk, and then remind everyone why their leggings still cost triple. Anyway, Lululemon is either about to outmaneuver the entire dupe economy or get dragged into the court of public opinion for trying to co-opt the very trend that’s been eating into their profits, but they’re clearly not sticking to the whole “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” thing.