Coachella Is Suing Urban Outfitters
As of late Tuesday, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is suing Urban Outfitters, Inc. for capitalizing on the music event and diluting its brand.
According to Women's Wear Daily, the retailer's sister site Free People is inappropriately using registered trademarks to sell products that include a "Coachella Mini Dress," a "Coachella Boot," and a "Coachella Valley Tunic."
Coachella has its own collection of merchandise, including clothing, as well as collaborations with H&M and Pandora jewelry. The suit claims that Free People is "trading on the goodwill and fame" of the Coachella brand and that the use of their name competes with those partnerships. Plus, they allege that Free People is trying to "misdirect consumers" to "unauthorized apparel." The festival's complaint says it was forced to act to "protect the famous Coachella marks and protect the public."
Additionally, "A Google search for 'Coachella clothing' results in an advertisement for [Free People's] infringing goods," the suit states, adding that Urban Outfitters, Inc. allegedly "ignored [Coachella's] demands to cease their unlawful conduct."
At press time, only one such item was still available on freepeople.com - the mini dress, which was on sale for $89.95 off of $128. Further searches on the site revealed that the phrase "Coachella" only resulted in items that had the word "festival" in their descriptions, but didn't necessarily mention the music event by name. Urban Outfitters' search results for "Coachella" only came back with a print poster commemorating Woodstock, the '60s-era festival.
Cosmopolitan.com has reached out to both the Coachella Festival and Urban Outfitters, Inc. for comment and will update this story if they respond.
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