Three Graffiti Artists Take Legal Action Against Vivienne Westwood and Farfetch

Three graffiti and street artists have filed a complaint against Vivienne Westwood and Farfetch for allegedly selling apparel imprinted with their artwork.

Filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, their complaint claims that the British designer company “inexplicably, and without notice, let alone consent, prominently splashed the artists’ work across their apparel in a transparent effort to lend credibility and an aura of urban cool to their apparel by co-opting the plaintiffs’ special combination of graffiti style and street art.” The artists are seeking a juried trial and an unspecified amount in damages.

Cole Smith, Reece Deardon and Harry Matthews, who are each professionally known as “Disa,” “Snok,” and “Rennee,” are based in the U.K. Their filing alleges that Vivienne Westwood used their respective tags to sell mass-market apparel and that suggests “complete indifference and considerable disrespect” to their “reputations and credibility, and further, to the entire culture and history of street art.” It continued, “The artists are demeaned, and their reputations are diminished by a false association with an entity who has proven a continued pattern of deplorable disregard towards independent artists and street art.”

Several representatives at Vivienne Westwood did not acknowledge media requests Thursday, nor had an attorney, who was said to be working on behalf of the company.

A Farfetch spokesperson said Thursday, “We have no comment.”

As of Thursday afternoon, some of the items in question including the designer label’s $475 “Drunken” T-shirt dress were still being offered on its site. And Vivienne Westwood’s $567 graffiti-printed jeans were being sold on Farfetch.

Jeff Gluck, an attorney for the artists, said Thursday that a cease-and-desist letter had been sent in August. Referring to the complaint, he said, “It does not get more offensive, blatant, and egregious than this.”

The artists claim that Vivienne Westwood “knew or should have known that seeking a license from the artists to use their names and copyrighted artwork was a condition precedent to trying to make money using their names and copyrighted artwork.” The artists alleged that the company “instead chose to surreptitiously move forward with commercializing their personas and signatures without permission, or any attempts to license the artists’ intellectual property at all, hoping that the artists would not become aware of defendants’ misconduct.”

The complaint suggested that Vivienne Westwood and Farfetch benefited from the alleged “misappropriation and infringement through increased sales, and that the association with the artists increased the value, goodwill, image and position of their brands,” and gave them access to “street art connoisseurs that they otherwise would not reach.”