The $925 Balenciaga Towel Skirt was recently released in their Spring '24 collection, and it looks exactly as it sounds. It has "2 buttons at waistline" and an "adjustable belt with buckle" inside. The product listing says it has the "Balenciaga logo embroidered tone-on-tone at front," but it is not apparent from any listing images.
This has gone viral for obvious reasons and spurred many memes, jokes, and parodies. Given that it looks like a standard bath towel, how susceptible is it to infringement?
Trade dress refers to the visual aspects of a product, including size, shape, color, graphics, and texture. To register this with the USPTO, owners must show that the trade dress is inherently distinctive. This would be a tricky proposition with the towel skirt. A design patent, perhaps? This offers protection similar to trade dress but with a limited term compared to the protected-as-long-as-used-in-commerce provision of trade dress protection.
However, in both these cases, the only unique visual/ornamental aspect I can perceive is the pattern on the border of the towel. Do you think this is enough to secure registration on either front? It doesn't appear that the phrase "towel skirt" is registered either, which is unsurprising given that it is descriptive.
For infringement of trade dress or design patents, to boil it down to the basics, the owner has to prove that an infringing product would be confused for the original. A standard grey bath towel can look confusingly similar to the Balenciaga towel skirt. What's stopping someone from selling them as towel skirts?
In this case, brand protection may lie in the strange case of pre-existing copies and social privilege. The average consumer of copies of luxury goods probably would not seek out counterfeit Balenciaga Towel Skirts. It's quirky by design and not really "everyday wear." Besides, you can get close enough "copies" from Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc. Are these big-box versions competing with Balenciaga? No. Will the average Balenciaga consumer be confused or tempted by these? Not likely.
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#trademarklaw #infringement #intellectualproperty #balenciaga
The It's Different" campaign truly lives up to its name by pushing the boundaries of fashion innovation. The juxtaposition of high-end materials with everyday aesthetics, like the Erewhon Tote's paper-like leather, is a brilliant commentary on luxury and utility. Balenciaga continues to redefine what fashion can be, blending art and functionality in ways that challenge conventional norms. Excited to see how these pieces will influence future trends!