Shein has landed on the receiving end of a new trademark lawsuit waged against it by apparel and accessories brand Chrome Hearts. According to the complaint that it filed in a California federal court on August 24, Los Angeles-based Chrome Hearts alleges that Zoetop Business and Shein US Services (collectively, “Shein”) are on the hook for trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition in connection with their manufacturing, marketing, and/or sale of handbags and other accessories that bear marks that are “identical with [or] substantially indistinguishable from … one or more of the Chrome Hearts marks,” and as a result, are likely to cause consumers to believe that the Shein products are made, authorized, licensed or otherwise affiliated with Chrome Hearts.
Addressing its trademark rights, Chrome Hearts asserts that as an American luxury brand, it has been designing, manufacturing, and selling “artistically styled leather goods, apparel, jewelry, and accessories since 1988,” with all of its leather products, in particular, being adorned with sterling silver hardware, including all of the buttons and ornamental pieces. In addition to being the owner of the CHROME HEARTS word mark, the Richard and Laurie Lynn Stark-owned company claims that it maintains trademark rights in “various design only marks,” namely, various cross designs, such as its Cemetery Cross Patch and CH Cross. Chrome Hearts claims that it uses the crosses as source identifiers and that consumers have come to view them as such due to its “long use, extensive sales, and significant advertising and promotional activities” involving with those marks.
“Chrome Hearts has achieved such fame as to be copied by others without authorization, including [Shein], as is the case with many other luxury brands,” Chrome Hearts asserts, stating that in the past five years, alone, it has “filed more than 100 lawsuits against defendants who infringed upon the Chrome Hearts marks.” (Those defendants include Dolls Kill, Macy’s, Sears, J.C. Penney, Hot Topic, Fashion Nova, Missguided, Philipp Plein, the Kooples, and MNML Los Angeles, among others.)
Against that background and given that the Shein products at issue “bear counterfeit marks that are identical or substantially indistinguishable to the Chrome Hearts marks based on how the marks appear in the marketplace to a consumer,” Chrome Hearts sets out claims of trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition. In addition to monetary damages, the company is seeking injunctive to bar Shein from continuing to offer up goods bearing confusingly similar marks. Additionally, Chrome Hearts wants the court to order Shein to “recall from any distributors and retailers” and to deliver to it all remaining inventory bearing the Chrome Hearts marks and to “disclose their supplier(s) and manufacturer(s) of the [allegedly infringing] products,” among other things.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: The Chrome Hearts lawsuit comes on the heels of litigation initiated against Shein in July that accuses the Singapore-headquartered fast fashion giant of engaging in racketeering as a result of its “opaque” corporate structuring practices and its pattern of algorithmic-driven infringement. In the complaint that they filed in July, independent designers Krista Perry, Larissa Martinez, and Jay Baron provide a stunning look at Shein’s tech-powered model, which they claim enables the company to make ultra-fast fashion and billions of dollars in the process.
In particular, the plaintiffs in that case allege that Shein regularly offers up thousands of products, no shortage of which consist of designs co-opted from well-known companies, such as Nike, and indie brands, alike. Product selection decisions are made, according to the complaint, by way of “a secretive algorithm that astonishingly determines nascent fashion trends,” which Shein couples with “a corporate structure, including production and fulfillment schemes, that are perfectly executed to grease the wheels of the algorithm, including its unsavory and illegal aspects.”
A representative for Shein told TFL, “SHEIN takes all claims of infringement seriously. It is not our intent to infringe anyone’s valid intellectual property and it is not our business model to do so. SHEIN suppliers and Marketplace sellers are required to comply with company policy and certify their products do not infringe third-party IP. We continue to invest in and improve our product review process.”
The case is Chrome Hearts LLC v. Zoetop Business Co., et al., 2:23-cv-07006 (C.D. Cal.).
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