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I have a friend who wants to be a fashion designer. They have enough money to start the business with a fancy website, social media plat forms, and travel to various large cities around the US for pop up shops.

They buy a sweatshirt, use a curicuit (spelled right?) machine and iron on a patch thats a design of theirs. Sometimes its just a heart. But others its a more intricate design.

I had never seen the maker if the sweatshirt until i looked on social media last night. They have a Polo sweatshirt that they ironed a designed patch on to and sold it as "Suzi’s sweatshirt"

This rubbed me the wrong way. Is there an implied understanding that Polo is making these sweatshirts if she uses their shirt with the tag still on it (the sweatshirt i saw looks like Polo is in white ink directly on it, and wouldn’t be able to be taken off easily.)

I was surprised that she would do this, as it looks like shes trying to capitalize on the Polo brand without actually working for them. Is this legal?

[This message edited by Gottagetthrough at 10:31 PM, Tuesday, January 18th]

Polo and other designers probably won't pay attention unless your friend gets a huge business going. Then they would sue her.

Doing that just makes her look like small potatoes. If she mentions Polo by name in her promo materials, especially if she says anything like "Polo by Suzi" or "Suzi for Ralph Lauren," she'll get an injunction the moment they catch wind of it.

She could also just get unlucky if they stumble across her products. Part of maintaining a trademark or copyright is consistent enforcement of that copyright. When I was involved with a Harry Potter-themed charity event years ago, we wrote to Universal for permission to use the Potter name and trademarked property. They sent back a specific permission that emphasized their ownership and the circumstances under which we were allowed to proceed. Another local event didn't take those steps and was shut down hard. The other charity erroneously thought that they were free to use it because they were a nonprofit. I was told that Universal came down on them because if they had looked the other way, another company could use that as a legal argument that they let their trademark lapse into the public domain.

Wow. I was worried that she could get into trouble. From her side, I think she wants to use the best sweatshirts she can because she really believes in her product, and she doesn’t want the sweatshirts to fall apart after a few washes. I think there is some naïveté on her part.

The kicker, is that her husband owns a successful , 10 employee internet marketing company. This is NOT his first rodeo . This is why she has such great social media platforms already, she can afford them, and her husband knows people. I don’t know if she knows any better, but HE sure as heck should know better.

Eh. Should have known he would be slimy. After she had baby 1, my wh asked him if they were going out at all or stuck in the house bc of the baby . He pointed at her (she couldnt hear) said, "No way, look at her. I cant go out with her until she loses that baby weight Hahaha"