20/12/2022
By binternet
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Who are these designers who have lost their name in fashion?<

In many jobs you can lose your business, your shirt, even your sleep. But in fashion, we also risk leaving our name behind. Who are these designers who have lost their name in fashion?

Summary

Fashion has "taken" their name

We must distinguish between those who have "lost" it due to poorly calibrated contracts, and those who have "sold" it, and cannot no longer exploit it, even though it is registered on their identity card. The history of fashion is dotted with the legal standoffs of designers fighting to rework under the name, or trying to prevent its exploitation on products in which they do not recognize themselves. From Inès de la Fressange to Christian Lacroix, from Thierry Mugler (who now bears his middle name, Manfred) to John Galliano (who had to leave his eponymous line to LVMH at the same time as his job at Dior), from Jil Sander to Helmut Lang, famous examples move the public (but not fashion, which has seen others), and are found, what is less well known, in all sectors "where a surname stands out from the physical person, and becomes an intellectual property title – that is, a trademark. And that implies that a contract has been signed.”

Corinne Champagner Katz, lawyer at the Paris Bar, specialist in intellectual property, recalls the Ritz, Ducasse, Taittinger cases, the case of Editions Bordas... So many situations in which, according to her, "no one is a victim of anything . You can't "steal" someone's name. And if that's the case, it's because he was badly protected, his future badly anticipated. Master Champagner Katz recalls the legal framework: “the surname is the name that an individual has from the first to the last day of his life. No one in the world can take it away from him. This name is untouchable and non-transferable. On the other hand, we can lose a mark. Sometimes it's a family problem, or a partner problem."

This is how the French designer Hervé Léger lost the right to use his name in 1998, when his company was bought out by the BCBG Max Azria group. Since he was redheaded, his friend Karl Lagerfeld, never short of creative solutions, suggested he work under “Hervé L. Leroux”. Lagerfeld who managed to make a name for himself, to create a brand, and to build his legend partly thanks to the name… of another.

The Lacroix case

For Christian Lacroix, it's a (sad) serial drama: a brilliant and prolific creator, his prestige has long far exceeded his turnover. In thirty years of existence, his brand has undoubtedly brought him a lot of satisfaction, but proportionally, little money. On paper, his house could have generated enormous profits - especially founded in 1987, in full boom of the Couture's exuberance – but its combinations did not yield the expected results. While working at Jean Patou, Bernard Arnault offered him the artistic direction of Dior. Lacroix declines: he prefers to found his own house. Arnault finances it for seventeen years, not very lucrative. His company was then sold by LVMH to businessmen Simon, Jérôme and Léon Falic. To make a quick profit, they embark together on a risky merchandising, far from the Haute Couture for which it is made. He doesn't really have a choice: in his entire career, Christian Lacroix has never owned his name.

Signage gymnastics

So when he signs parallel collaborations with Gaumont cinemas, when he designs a limited edition of bottles for Evian or dresses up the TGV, it's really him, but it is not explicitly written. Sometimes, it's outright products that come out under his name, but without his permission. Audrey Katz, Director of CCK AVOCATS, involved in the protection and enhancement of intangible assets, explains that "in 2011, a company created furniture using the expression 'designed by Christian Lacroix', an adventure in which the designer had nothing to do with it. He quickly filed a new trademark designating the furniture manufacturing activity, in order to be able to sue the said company for infringement. But as this deposit was intended to counter a commercial action and was therefore not considered "in good faith" by law, the Court of Cassation confirmed the cancellation of this deposit. Corinne Champagner-Katz adds, to clearly distinguish the scenarios: “Trademarks are protected according to the classes of activity in which they are registered.

Who are these creators who lost their name in fashion?

It was a man of fashion, Pierre Cardin, who invented the licensing system in ready-to-wear, and who had the genius to apply them to cosmetics, which sustain most of the big luxury brands. The license authorized him to use the names that had become trademarks”. Kenzo Takada and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac also had their legal battles, but fortunately, designers who have “lost” their name can still work with their artist name: this was the case for Lacroix with the costumes for the Opera national of Paris. They just have to avoid signing with the logo of their former company. Kenzo, for example, signed with his face.

For a designer, the ideal would be to register his brand in his own name and only sell it to his company when a partner takes a stake in the capital in order to raise the stakes. This implies technical knowledge, and/or being very well surrounded.

Creating under a fake real name

In the 90s, Walter Van Beirendonck had signed a contract with an important group for the time: he had access to substantial production resources, he was provided with a studio of twenty people in Antwerp, forty more distributed in Germany and Italy. He first worked with all the margins of freedom, then noting that the creator had developed six hundred points of sale in the world, including sixty in Japan alone, the group wanted to draw even more profits from the brand.

Collections have been produced in his name, without his knowledge. In the early 2000s, out of integrity, he paid the employees of his studio in Antwerp, and resigned. For five years, he loses the right to use his name to sign collections. Under the name “Aesthetic Terrorists”, he starts from scratch, starts again at shows and showroom presentations in Paris. All his talent, temporarily without his signature. Fortunately, the commercial use of his name will be within his rights, and Belgian fashion, relieved, in order.

For his part, Roland Mouret, from 2005 to 2010, had to work under the name RM by Roland Mouret, before recovering the rights to use his name. For Corinne Champagner-Katz, “the name is one of the attributes of personality, but in the cases cited, and with the permission of the person himself, it has become a mark. And if we have sold it as such, we can neither compete with it nor create another brand under the same name for the same activities as those sold.

Collections in their name, but without them

It's probably the most frustrating, when they hadn't consented to it, or weren't aware of it at the time of the moon of honey from the signing of the contract. In 1999, Jil Sander sold 75% of his company to the Prada group. Six months later, citing differences of opinion with management, she resigned. But she came back, like Chantal Thomass, who was fired in 1995 by the Japanese owner of her brand, before returning to commercial use three years later. Now the brand Chantal Thomass belongs to the Chantelle group, and herself, to no one: at 73, the great lady of lingerie who retired from fashion in 2018, remains an active and independent designer.

Inès de La Fressange for her part "lost her name", in reality the right to exploit it commercially, in 1999, dismissed for "serious misconduct" by her majority shareholder, François-Louis Vuitton, who had no I didn't like it when she sold one of her drawings without telling him to decorate a pill box for "La jouvence de l'Abbé Soury". Pill which, for once, went wrong. She finally recovered her rights, after 14 years of proceedings. Corinne Champagner-Katz recalls that “during an asset sale, some signed contracts in which they sold either the whole company or part of its activity. If we “lose” our name, it is because we have actually sold it. And it is always a question of drafting the agreements. Please note: this does not apply to domain names. This means that as a precaution, it is always prudent to file your own name in this capacity”.

The air does not make the first name

Audrey Katz points out that “in fashion, to distinguish a brand from its initiator after a while, or just to modernize, we remove its first name. We erased the "Yves" of Saint-Laurent, "Margiela" remains a house, but without Martin. Whereas in food marketing, it's the opposite: when you affix or add a first name to a brand, you give the consumer the impression of buying a history, a tradition and a know-how. There are even agrifood giants who have created surnames from scratch: Justin Bridou, Jeff de Bruges, it gives an authentic touch. What about the real names that have become brands, and which could have fallen into everyday language? “Sopalin, Caddy, Frigidaire, Kleenex, or the inventor of the zipper, have known the worst for a brand: the danger of becoming generic, risking losing their distinctiveness. And so, their trademark.

How can you protect yourself from the phenomenon of the overused, trivialized surname, when you have already managed to retain the rights? Corinne Champagner Katz pleads for “applying zero tolerance of illicit uses and counterfeits. To preserve etiquette ethics.