Levi's takes on Japanese Denim Resellers and Manufacturers

[thelion1856]

chick chick blaw!

[ayn]

fyi I have all the tabs with me, kiya loaned them to me to photograph them... I might have time to do that tonight and I'll post them here...

[thelion1856]

i'd really appreciate it.

[khaltire]

shouldn't they have told oyu before they shipped and charged you that they would be defacing your jeans? pretty lame imo

[Panda-san]

Got my S510XX 19ozII's in from BiG. Wore while soaking, they're hang drying now.

Red tab and arcuate were intact.

[ayn]

DHL is supposed to be fucking delivering my Oni Blues today, and sounds like everything should be intact, nice nice!

[V-Ron]

I'm sorry to ask this as I know it probably has been asked before. But there are 34 pages and I don't know how to search for it.

What will happen with the remaining stock? There must been tons left and they couldn't possibly just shelf it forever. Maybe they'll all go into some sort of denim museum? What will this mean in the future for people who own these jeans that are now out of production? Will they be worth a lot more and become collectables?

[ayn]

def need to look into chipping in some money to buy up that old Levi's factory on Valencia and turn it into a repros museum, LOL...

[godmother]

What makes this all sorta ironic is that Levi's " gave away the baby with the bathwater " and now wants the baby back. They closed the last of their own factories in the USA, sold off all the looms and machinary...and have cheapened the product, the fabric, and the fit to the point that a 501 isn't really a 501. The only good thing they have done was LVC and killed that....What makes it so sad is jobs were lost, quality changed and now that new brands are bringing back the true " artisan " jeans making... they are being sued.

[drofhiphopology]

ayn - I pmed you.

my sammies just came in with back tab ripped too

damn these are stiff

[hollaforadolla]

I wonder when Colt firearms is going to sue Tokyo Marui for making replicas of their weapons. Even stamping `Colt` on `em.

colt makes the consumer pay by forcing all imported marui products (and all other airsoft companies) to be puttied (putting disgusting putty on the logo that is impossible to remove). but people got smarter with using special putty removers and what not.

putty on red tabs?

[mikesduc]

shouldn't they have told oyu before they shipped and charged you that they would be defacing your jeans? pretty lame imo

I gotta agree. It should have been addressed up front.

[kiya]

I gotta agree. It should have been addressed up front.

Actually, we tried to make sure that everybody that ordered a pair after the lawsuit was filed knew that their jeans might be from a batch with no tabs on them. Anybody that was NOT notified totally has the chance to return them to us with a full refund.

I apologize if anybody got theirs and is not satisfied, we had no intention of tricking anybody. You must understand that the last seven days at Self Edge have been beyond hectic and nervewracking and we apologize for any mishaps.

[headtowall]

I understand that the bottomline here is the law, not what's actually right, wrong, or logical. But what if Ralph Lauren tried to trademark having a logo on the chest of a polo shirt? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't fly today, and the Levi's tab-anywhere-on-pocket thing is pretty much as absurd.

[kelvin]

Your right, it probably would be hard to get that trademark today, the thing is Levi's got the trademark a very long time ago. At the very least we should be happy that we will still receive a quality product from Japan in both fabrication and construction. That, we know, they can never loose, with or without Levi's trademark .

[thelion1856]

chick chick blaw!

[drofhiphopology]

thelion - you suck, haha. I wish I had more money, I would have got BKs and the IH 21oz.

[ayn]

nice! that's a shit load of jeans! DHL sucks, due to "driver problems" my Oni's are not here, will be re-delivered tomorrow, hopefully... well, not like I would wear them any time soon anyway so it's cool, but I would like to chk out the fit and maybe soak them and whatever.... hehe...

[sexualharrasmentpanda]

jesus christ thats a lot of selvedge

[Guest jeffvyain]

having looked at that picture, i don't see how any rational person could confuse those with levi's. i'm even less convinced this is an actual trademark infringement.

[blm14]

The important thing is that those people who WOULD confuse the jeans for levis are either gonna file the memory under "levis" and go on with their lives, or look at them at say "wow those are nice levis" and go look for them at a levis store, or ask you what they are and potentially buy a pair themselves assuming they can swallow the price. But the point is that they aren't really going to a) Think any less of levis or instantly change their shopping habits.

This idea that levis is protecting their trademark kind of presupposes that the offending companies in question INTENDED to use the levis "branding" in an attempt to either pass themselves off as actual levis jeans or to hitch a ride on levis popularity. But the companies in question are not interested in attempting to steal levis thunder. I feel like this would be different if they were trying to pass themselves off as the real thing but that's not the case, at least not in this instance. And I think that's the key. If some factory in china looks at samurai or sugarcane and says "wow, look those guys are using levis trademark looks and not getting in trouble" the next logical step is "I will too and I'll try to make people think my jeans actually ARE levis." Levi Strauss needs to make an example so as to provide wholesale theft of their intellectual property.

One aspect of this that's always confused me is why didnt Iron Heart, Oni, Sugarcane et al just ask permission from levis to license their arcuate and tabs? Kind of like a stussy x levis or a Wharhal x Levis. Who knows, maybe they did. But you dont make a repro jean that is THAT much of an approximation of someone else's product and not expect a lawsuit.

[gamma888]

dayum... i'm gonna have to rob your place in SD someday soon ;-)

nice cops though!

my gift card is still full.. haven't spent anything yet! awfully too busy lately...

[shekki]

i got 2 pair coming from japan that should be coming in this week. i hope all goes well with customs and all.

[ayn]

Here are the photographs, I've also posted them at my blog, if you have a Flickr account, you should be able toget to the full resolution files by clicking on them... If you don't have one you can sign up for free... Don't forget to join our Dry Denim group while you're there!

Iron Heart

Flat Head

Sugar Cane

Samurai

Geisha

I am going to print some of these out to 13x19 and frame them...

[PG2G]

So can they be sold without complication as long as they are detagged?

[kiya]

Actually no..

Unfortunately the ONLY brand that can be sold once the tag has been removed is Sugarcanes.

Samurai, Iron Heart, Flat Head, Studio D'Artisan, and Oni cannot be sold due to the arcuates.

[sexualharrasmentpanda]

that is fucking sad.

[Dex_star]

my bks from self edge has the tagged cut off

that kinda sucks

wish it was still there

so my tag is probably in that pic somewhere

[BTT]

was it really nessecary to strip the tags?

[kiya]

It was either take off the tabs, and sell the jeans with the arcuates fully intact or destroy the jeans.

those were the two choices i was given, in reality they wouldn't have been destroyed, they would have been taken home and added to my collection. not sure if i needed another 100 pairs of jeans added to my collection in one day though.

then after two days i was told i could not sell the jeans at all, tab or no tab. i was told i had to take the arcuates off too. but i refused, at which point the product was removed from the store.