Supreme quashes confusion about partnership between Samsung and knock-off brand

By

Gabriella Lacombe

Published
Dec 11, 2018

After a public debacle over Samsung partnering with a fake Supreme, the NYC-based brand of street style fame has made a public announcement to clear things up.

"Supreme is not working with Samsung, opening a flagship location in Beijing or participating in a Mercedes-Benz runway show," the streetwear brand said via an Instagram story. "These claims are blatantly false and propagated by a counterfeit organization." 

The statement comes after Samsung partnered with Supreme Italia, a brand launched by International Brand Firm (IBF) and based in Barletta, Italy that takes its name and likeness from the original New York brand. Although the U.S. Supreme has taken its Italian lookalike to court in the past, the rival brand was deemed legal under intellectual property law and allowed to keep its business afloat. 

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Samsung and the knock-off label recently caused mass confusion when they announced their new brand partnership, accompanied by the opening of a Beijing flagship and a runway show at the Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center in Shanghai.

Leo Lau, Samsung China’s digital marketing manager, spelled out the finer details of the partnership in a since-deleted post on Weibo, a Chinese social media site. “We are collaborating with Supreme Italia, not Supreme NYC,” Lau said. “Supreme NYC has no sales and marketing authorization in China, but Supreme Italia has obtained product sales and market authorizations in the Asia Pacific region (except Japan).”

In addition to Supreme Italia, IBF also operates a legal Supreme Spain.