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Adidas files a trademark infringement lawsuit against Thom Browne over its use of stripes.
Adidas has a history of litigiousness when it comes to the use of its beloved stripe logo. The German sportswear brand’s latest target is Thom Browne, which recently received a trademark infringement and dilution complaint on Monday in a New York federal court claiming they are “selling athletic-style apparel and footwear featuring two, three, or four parallel stripes in a manner that is confusing similar to Adidas’s three-stripe mark.” The suit alleges that Adidas has been involved in a previous mediation process with Thom Browne that began in November 2020, but the proceedings didn’t resolve the dispute. In a statement issued to WWD, Thom Browne responded to Adidas by claiming they’ve cooperated and “acted honorably” the entire time. “Adidas consented for 12 years and now they’re changing their mind. The court won’t allow that. And consumers won’t as well. It’s an attempt to use the law illegally.”
Sotheby’s auctions an NFT of the World Wide Web’s original source code for $5.4 million.
Sotheby’s auctioned off the source code to an early version of World Wide Web, in the form of a nonfungible token, or NFT, for $5.4 million with fees. Originally created by Tim Berners-Lee, the code includes the first web browser and early versions of methods computers still use to talk with each other, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol, known as HTTP, and HyperText Markup Language, known as HTML. Sotheby’s says it will accept payment in cryptocurrency. “It’s nice to see it sell for a value commensurate with its historic significance,” says Jeremy Norman, a California-based rare book and manuscripts dealer specializing in the history of science. “It’s unbelievably important in the history of science and technology.”
432 Park Avenue. Photography by Arturo Pardavila…
The penthouse at troubled New York supertall 432 Park Avenue gets listed for $169 million.
Everyone’s favorite punching bag condo development, 432 Park Avenue, is back in the news again. The supertall’s 96th-floor penthouse is listing for $169 million despite the building’s well-documented construction defects. The price is nearly double from what Saudi retail magnate, Fawaz Alhokair, paid for it in 2016 when he purchased it for $88 million. If it fetches the asking price, it would set a record for price per square foot at $20,500, eclipsing a multiunit deal at 220 Central Park South, in May, which clocked in at $13,269 a square foot. “This is like a try-God price,” says Donna Olshan, the president of Olshan Realty, which analyzes the luxury market.
An architect receives the Pulitzer Prize for her investigations into Chinese internment camps.
The first architect to ever win the award in an area outside of criticism, Alison Killing and BuzzFeed staffers Megha Rajagopalan and Christo Buschek used a Chinese search engine called Baidu, similar to Google Earth, to track internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region harboring up to a million Muslim detainees. Between 2017 and the report’s publication in August of 2020, 260 prison-like structures were constructed to contain Uyghur and other minority groups who have suffered crimes against humanity and human rights abuses by the Chinese government for decades.
The proposed Essential Workers Monument in Battery Park City…
Manhattan locals are protesting plans for a $3 million monument to essential workers in a park.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo is embroiled in another controversy over the construction of a monument. His office recently unveiled plans for the Essential Workers Monument in Battery Park City, but residents of the neighborhood filed a change.org petition asking him to relocate the monument and allege they weren’t consulted on its location. In a letter sent to Cuomo, councilwoman Margaret Chin noted that it would be the third memorial to be built in the park in recent years. “Residents rightly point out that a memorial of this magnitude should be in a more central location,” she wrote. Residents also decried how the monument would take away roughly 3,000 square feet of green space in Rockefeller Park at a time when open green space has become essential for safe activities in New York.
Belgian handbag maker Delvaux gets acquired by Richemont, which didn’t disclose terms of the deal.
Richemont has acquired the Belgian leather goods label Delvaux, expanding its portfolio to a lineup that includes Cartier and Dunhill. Richemont didn’t disclose terms of the transaction but, in a statement, said that the deal wouldn’t have material financial impact on the Swiss firm’s assets or operating results. According to Thomas Chauvet, an analyst at Citigroup, the deal is “consistent with Richemont’s desire to grow in the leather accessories segment,” estimating the cost of the transaction could be as much as $296 million and how the firm has underperformed in the soft luxury sector for more than a decade.
Off-White kidswear…
Today’s attractive distractions:
Virgil Abloh drops an Off-White kidswear collection that’s fit for pint-sized hypebeasts.
One of China’s most idyllic tourist destinations is a fake town full of pretend residents.
Hood By Air shares a cryptic clip that suggests the label might be back for real this time.
New Zealand will ban a host of single-use plastics including straws and cutlery by 2025.
