An Australian menswear duopoly based on street art inspired graphic tees and overly elaborate dress shirts with decals on them became litigious this week after local menswear providers Calibre reached an out of court settlement with competing Melbourne based label, Politix.
The parties reached a settlement after Calibre issued plagiarism claims in Federal Court which claimed that several shirts from Politix’s 2012 collection “took too much inspiration” from a shirt in Calibre’s 2010 Summer range. As part of the settlement, Politix agreed to destroy all remaining stock deemed to have infringed on the intellectual property of their rivals by blasting the garments into space in a giant plastic bag labelled “terrible”.
“Calibre has a proud history in the Australian fashion industry and we have worked hard to build our successful reputation over the past 23 years,” Calibre general manager Andrew Petersen said.
“We are proactive in registering our original designs and are not afraid to take action where necessary in order to protect our intellectual property rights. We are very pleased with the outcome in this matter against Politix.”
Politix issued a statement denying any intention to infringe on copyright: “Politix continues to deny any infringement. Calibre discontinued its court action with no court orders and each party agreed to pay their own costs.”
Our advice? Just sew another pocket on it. That solves everything right?
