Vans gets injunction against Tyga and MSCHF’s Wavy Baby trainers
completemusicupdate.comA New York court has issued a temporary restraining order stopping Tyga and MSCHF from selling and promoting their Wavy Baby trainers following legal action filed by shoe maker Vans.MSCHF is also the company behind Lil Nas X’s Satan Shoes which resulted in a similar legal run in with Nike last year, the Satan Shoes actually being Nike trainers that had been meddled with.That particular dispute was settled after MSCHF agreed to recall all the Satan Shoes it had sold.
But the legal bust up ensured that the already controversial collaboration with Lil Nas X was an even bigger news story, and it also provided the rapper with an entire marketing concept for his next single release campaign.The Wavy Baby project with Tyga is more ambitious in terms of the shoe itself.
Although clearly influenced by Vans’ products, they have been designed to look digitally warped and, I guess, a bit wavy.Responding, Vans said in a legal filing last month that the latest MSCHF shoes “blatantly and unmistakably incorporate Vans’ iconic trademarks” and that both the company and Tyga had “shamelessly marketed the Wavy Baby shoe in a direct effort to confuse consumers”.For its part MSCHF insisted that the Wavy Baby trainers were a statement about the nature of the sports shoes business and should therefore be protected by its free speech rights. “Standard shoe practice is: steal a sole, steal an upper, change a symbol”, it said. “What a boring use of cultural material.
Wavy Baby is a complete distortion of an entire object that is itself a symbol”.MSCHF was also keen to stress that its shoe wasn’t identical to any Vans product, because – you know – it’s all wavy, and therefore the idea that its latest shoe project would confuse consumers into.
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