Name: Aboriginal fashion brand Clothing The Gap to rebrand after two-year legal battle with US clothing giant Gap - ABC News
Brand: abc.net.au
SKU: abc-net-au-782
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Aboriginal fashion brand Clothing The Gap to rebrand after two-year legal battle with US clothing giant Gap - ABC News

preview

Aboriginal fashion brand Clothing The Gap to rebrand after two-year legal battle with US clothing giant GapShareClothing The Gap, a small Aboriginal-run business located in Melbourne's inner-north, has ended a two-year legal fight with US clothing giant Gap Inc.The fashion brand will be rebranded as Clothing The Gaps by the end of July.The Gap challenged the label over the use of "gap" in their name, citing trademark infringement after the Australian company attempted to trademark 'Clothing The Gap'.Gunditjmara woman Laura Thompson is the co-founder and managing director of the company.She said she was surprised when she first received a cease-and-desist letter from The Gap in April 2019."When we registered Clothing The Gap with the trademark through Spark Health, I guess we thought it was a play on words with closing the gap," Ms Thompson told the ABC."We never at all anticipated or hadn't even really thought of The Gap clothing at all, when we registered it."At that point, Clothing The Gap was still in its infancy — it was a year before Ms Thompson registered the fashion brand as a social enterprise. It was also a year after Gap Inc closed all its stores in Australia."In April 2019, [Clothing The Gap] wasn't even its own entity in its own right. We didn't have a physical store, our online presence was incredibly tiny [compared] to where we are now, two years later," she said.But while the store has gone from strength to strength, the business operators have suffered an "emotional toll" over the branding dispute."In the background, we've had uncertainty around our brand for the last two years; we've been continuing to call ourselves Clothing The Gap, knowing very well that we're going to have to rebrand at some stage."A judge in November found in favour of Gap Inc, and Ms Thompson said they decided not to escalate the battle further, opting instead to focus their efforts on a campaign to 'Free The Flag'."We decided to put our energies into a public fight, to free that Aboriginal flag for all Australians, and in particular the Aboriginal community," she said.Ms Thompson said she had until July 31 to rebrand to 'Clothing The Gaps' and sell all merchandise that contains the old branding.The legal matter was unfamiliar territory for Ms Thompson, whose work experience prior to Clothing The Gap was with Aboriginal Controlled Health Services."We're health professionals who produce fashion to fund the impact we want to do," she said."We were finding ourselves in a space that we're very unfamiliar [with] and navigating trademarks … We did fight them in the trademark court, and we lost."There will be costs involved in having to rebrand before the July deadline."I couldn't put a finger on the final financial costs. But I think the fact that we've reached the decision has sort of reduced that emotional toll," she said."[We're grateful] for them to allow us to continue to use the word Clothing The Gaps — we didn't have to completely rebrand everything."She is looking forward to putting up new artwork and signs in their Brunswick store."We're really excited to explain to our supporters and followers why we've had to rebrand," she said."I think people will be surprised to know that [we're] adding the 'S' to the Gap just because of a dispute with The Gap."Ms Thompson had feared losing customers and supporters had they been forced to rebrand completely.She said the new name, Clothing The Gaps, supports their ethos that there was more than one gap to fill to ensure prosperity for Aboriginal communities in Australia."One of the areas that we focus on in closing the gap is that young Aboriginal people, Indigenous people are engaged in employment and education," she said."We're proud and that we've got a cohort of probably about 15 young Aboriginal people that are employed through our social enterprise, and that were able to further engage a lot more of the Aboriginal community in the programs that we run.""We were Clothing The Gap before and now we're Clothing The Gaps. We're targeting more than one gap in the community," she said.The Gap has been approached for comment.16 Apr 202116 Apr 2021Fri 16 Apr 2021 at 2:31am, 16 Apr 202116 Apr 2021Fri 16 Apr 2021 at 2:44amMore on:

Aboriginal fashion brand Clothing The Gap to rebrand after two-year legal battle with US clothing giant GapShareClothing The Gap, a small Aboriginal-run business located in Melbourne's inner-north, has ended a two-year legal fight with US clothing giant Gap Inc.The fashion brand will be rebranded as Clothing The Gaps by the end of July.The Gap challenged the label over the use of "gap" in their name, citing trademark infringement after the Australian company attempted to trademark 'Clothing The Gap'.Gunditjmara woman Laura Thompson is the co-founder and managing director of the company.She...

public

Ahmed Yussuf

Official account of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, connecting you to the best content. Follows ABC accounts, lists trusted profiles.

Aboriginal fashion brand Clothing The Gap to rebrand after two-year legal battle with US clothing giant Gap - ABC News

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS