Everything covered by artistic freedom: Hip label annoys luxury company. The style column by Jan Kedves.
At the end of the year, we are awarding the prize for the most sophisticated PR stunt in fashion in 2023, which comes with zero money but a lot of respect. It goes to the Namilia label. This is popular with stars like Cardi B, Arca and SZA and has managed to stay in the conversation for months with its summer 2024 collection presented at Berlin Fashion Week in July – titled: “In Loving Memory of My Sugar Daddy”.
Because Hermès immediately sent a cease and desist notice after the show. What Namilia immediately made public on her socials. Fashion also loves a good David vs Goliath story, and when an almost 200-year-old Parisian luxury house deploys its legal department against a comparatively small, hip, sex-positive, gender-non-conforming Gen-Z label, then you get excited.
How disrespectful! How punk!
What happened? Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl, the Namilia founders, cited various insignia of the legendary and extremely expensive Birkin bag from Hermès in their collection. The upper part – gold padlock, gold buckle, dangling leather pendant – serves as a shape for ultra-skimpy tops, corsages and miniskirts in her collection, and also as an appliqué on suspenders. In addition, swear words such as “slut”, “pig” and “trash” are written on patent leather and mesh. How disrespectful! How punk!
Four days after the show, the real Jane Birkin, who gave the bag its name, died, which of course has no connection. RIP Jane. In any case, Hermès fell into the trap as planned, and Namilia flirted on Instagram: “We feel flattered to be noticed by Hermès at all.” The matter ended up before the Frankfurt regional court. At the end of September, Das rejected the injunction from Paris and decided that the Namilia collection is covered by artistic freedom.
Of course it may never be sold, because that would not only be an artistic and creative use but also a commercial use of the Birkin likeness. But lending items to stars? And then spread photos of it all over the internet, like Christina Aguilera wearing the pink Namilia Birkin rhinestone miniskirt? This is still allowed. Namilia have achieved – one can probably interpret it – exactly what they wanted to achieve with their collection: to generate a lot of attention and, in the process, to win the sympathy of creative thinkers who, like them, consider the super-restrictive brand protection behavior of old luxury brands to be excessive. Bravo!
This column first appeared in Musikexpress issue 12/2023.