You know that old adage that a lot of fake things come from China? Over the years they have tried to counter this notion but a recent Samsung announcement is not helping the “cause.” This time around though the fake company comes from Italy but wants to establish itself in China and the Korean OEM is caught in between. Supreme Italia, a legal rip-off of the original Supreme brand from New York City, has recently partnered with Samsung but now the latter is re-evaluating this given the backlash.
Samsung recently announced a collaboration with Supreme during the recent launch of its Galaxy A8 phone in China. They even brought on stage a duo from what is supposedly the original company but they actually represent Supreme Italia. While basically a rip-off of Supreme, legally they won a court case regarding using the brand name in Italy. They are planning to launch retail stores in China for the first time and this partnership with Samsung was the first step.
The “official” Supreme brand issued a statement saying that they are not working with Samsung and that they are not opening retail stores in China and will not be even participating in a Mercedes-Benz runway show. “These claims are blatantly false and propagated by a counterfeit organization,” says their official statement. Despite the fact that it can operate legally, Supreme Italia is widely considered a fake rip-off of the skate deck and accessory brand.
For its part, Samsung says that they are now currently re-evaluating their “cooperation” with the Supreme Italia brand in the Chinese market. They apologized for the “inconvenience caused” but didn’t exactly say sorry for helping perpetuate the idea that it was the actual Supreme brand and not the Italia one that they are working with.
Whether or not they were aware of the legalities here, someone from Samsung should have done their due diligence and made sure they were not involved in anything “controversial” with this partnership. Even though they’re still “re-evaluating”, we’re guessing that this will end up with Samsung pulling out of this deal.
VIA: Ice Universe, Hypebeast
