About a year and a half ago, J and I found ourselves with two Lettera 35s — the Olivetti we loved so much, we purchased it twice: one in Switzerland, and the other from France via the Venezuelan embassy (a thrift store find). We decided to keep the Lettera from Paris, which had a more interesting personal story… » 3/13/12 5:00pm 3/13/12 5:00pm

The University of Pennsylvania Law School became the focus of Louis Vuitton's lawyerly ire after a student group parodied the company's famous monogram print on poster art to advertise a symposium on trademark law. Instead of LVs and quatrefoils, those are little TMs and ©s. Clever right? And an obvious example of… » 3/08/12 1:20pm 3/08/12 1:20pm

Sasha Houston Brown of Minneapolis published a strongly worded open letter to Urban Outfitters yesterday at Racialicious. Brown, who directly addresses C.E.O. Glen Senk, takes the clothing chain to task for its appropriation of Native American arts and crafts, and its frequent use of the word "Navajo" in product names… » 10/11/11 3:25pm 10/11/11 3:25pm

Jewelry designer Alexis Bittar says Kim Kardashian has been knocking off his designs for her jewelry line, and he's no longer going to lend her his pieces to wear. "In the reality TV world, there are so many people coming out with lines to capitalize on their TV shows. They are not designers and they are just stealing… » 10/06/11 12:20pm 10/06/11 12:20pm

Forever 21 is being sued for copyright infringement by an up-and-coming designer — again. The folks behind a line called Feral Childe allege that the California-based creepy-Christian sweatshop emporium copied one of their textile prints. This is noteworthy because while under current law garments themselves — as in… » 7/15/11 12:55pm 7/15/11 12:55pm

Here is an ad for a Chinese lingerie brand in which the late Princess Di appears to play a cello in her skivvies. Makes quite a change from the commemorative teaspoons and Franklin Mint kitsch her estate has previously tolerated! » 9/01/10 2:35pm 9/01/10 2:35pm

You know what? After our last post, we thought we were going to take a break from hating 'Portfolio' fashion blogger Lauren Goldstein Crowe. We can't, for one thing, get a decent picture of her, because the people who run WireImage won't give us an account, apparently because we are "mean." Also: We are really not… » 6/07/07 1:17pm 6/07/07 1:17pm