The dilemma of the designer-name-brand came up this week, with Dries Van Noten reflecting on his impending departure from his eponymous label. In an interview with the New York Times, the Belgian designer, who sold a majority stake in his brand to Spanish fashion and beauty conglomerate Puig in 2018, said, “It’s scary. It’s a big void. It’s like, What is going to happen after, with my name?”, echoing a common question among designers who have launched – and subsequently left – brands that bear their names. Van Noten announced that he will part ways with his almost-40-year-old brand later this month.
There are plenty of cautionary tales about what it looks like – from a legal perspective – when a designer sells off his/her brand and ultimately, moves on. One of the most famous cases centers, of course, on Joseph Abboud, who famously landed in the middle of a legal battle after selling his namesake brand – trademark rights, included – to JA Apparel Corp. in 2000, and then launching a new menswear label, jaz, in 2007, which he marketed as “a new composition by designer Joseph Abboud.”
At stake in that case (and others like it) was Abboud’s ability to use his name in the context of a new fashion venture, and a New York federal district court ultimately enabled him to do so – albeit subject to certain conditions.
Fast forward and some of the more recent cases are not merely about whether and/or how a designer can use his/her name after selling off their eponymous label. Newer lawsuits are coming with an additional element: Social media. As the recently-settled lawsuit that pitted Hayley Paige Gutman against her former employer, JLM Couture, demonstrates, social media handles may play a sizable role in modern name-centric squabbles. In that case, Gutman, a wedding dress designer, and JLM, which owns the Hayley Paige wedding dress brand, were arguing in large part over which of them was the rightful owner of the various social media accounts bearing the Hayley Paige trademark.
While the parties ultimately settled suit, they only did so after a protracted battle (including a couple of rounds before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit), which served to drive home the importance and value of social media and any corresponding assets both in companies’ day-to-day operations and in deal-making, alike.
The Hayley Paige case is not only the latest cautionary tale for designers when it comes to selecting a company name (and social media handles); it is also a reminder to those with significant social media holdings and investments to “document their respective rights in social media accounts to avoid costly litigation and unanticipated results,” as Dechert LLP’s Gary J Mennitt, Shmuel Vasser, and Pat Andriola put it in a note.
But there is even more to it than that. In the Hayley Paige lawsuit and in Dries Van Noten’s case (no pun intended), there also appears to be a heightened element of identity at play in light of the role that social media has not just in a commercial sense but a personal one, as well. Van Noten spoke to this, telling the Times, “After the men’s show, I’m going to have another email address. I’m not going to be @driesvannoten anymore. I have to find an Instagram name now, because my Instagram is Dries Van Noten, and that is the brand. It’s strange. That I didn’t see coming.”
This is something that designers – and any eponymous brand-builders – should keep in mind.