Ownership in Fashion

Apropriation, copying, and knockoffs in fashion have historically been a given. Fast fashion takes its most sought-after styles from the season’s most influential designs: Gucci’s recent renaissance, for example, has “inspired” a variety of mainstream looks. In other, arguably more harmful cases, corporations like Zara, Forever 21, and Urban Outfitters take from small designers and artists; people who don’t have the money or the energy to fight back, and who probably never will. While copying is widespread and largely unnoticeable to the masses, one particular instance stands out in its unconventionality, provocativeness, and inappropriateness: Supreme. The skate and streetwear brand’s instantly recognizable logo is exactly the same as the text used by Barbara Kruger in her influential artwork. Supreme’s logo is not only infuriating in its unashamed copying, but also completely disregards the conceptual and ideological framework that Kruger’s typeface works with, effectively inverting meaning and creating an interesting power play.

Supreme, launched as a small brand in 1994 by James Jebbia, is now a billion-dollar empire. Since its inception and subsequent rise to household name, Supreme has distinguished itself via its now-iconic logo: white, bold letters in Futura font that read “Supreme” and contrast starkly with a boxed, red background. Jebbia has been quoted saying that the logo is “inspired,” by Barbara Kruger’s iconic text, but it is more than verifiable that the logo is a direct copy of a key element in Kruger’s work.

Barbara Kruger rose to fame in the 1970s and is still producing work today. She is best known for pieces that feature black and white images that more often

than not depict women and are taken from mainstream media. These images are then overlaid with provocative, double-edged phrases in her classic white bolded Futura font, in red text boxes or strips. Kruger does not have, and does not want, legal rights to the Futura typeface that she overlays, which makes it easy for brands to replicate it in their designs.

In 2013, Supreme sued Married to the Mob for $10 million for their t-shirt design which reads “Supreme Bitch,” again in white Futura font on a red background. Married to the Mob had been making and distributing this design, also an offshoot of Kruger, since 2004. When asked for comment

“Supreme’s logo is not only infuriating in its unashamed copying, but also completely disregards the conceptual and ideological framework that Kruger’s typeface works with, effectively inverting meaning and creating an interesting power play.”

by Complex, Barbara Kruger replied in an email which was completely blank save for an attachment titled “fools.doc.” This email read: “What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers. I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement.- Barbara Kruger.”

Kruger’s short email attachment points to a key point regarding Supreme’s appropriation of her visual

language, which is arguably the most striking component: the fact that, in borrowing from a postmodern, conceptual artist dealing with social themes, Supreme also misappropriates sociopolitical ideology and inverts everything that her work stands for. The phrases used in Kruger’s iconic typeface are generally meant to be subversive, double-edged messages that relate to the background image by calling into question the viewer’s relationship to capitalism, advertising, mainstream media, and the patriarchy. Kruger’s work effectively critiques and rejects these structures that prevail in society, and is known for doing this. As such, Supreme, a capitalistic streetwear brand, represents the complete opposite of this message, and even corrupts it. The brand makes the typeface not the subversion of mass media or consumer capitalism, but rather its embodiment. It is thus easy to be angered by Supreme’s deliberate and unapologetic use of Kruger’s typeface, and interesting to note not only its relationship to fashion, but to the art world and to the ideology especially visible in the artist’s key pieces. Supreme’s use of Kruger’s typeface inspires a kind of power play, both at the level of the social, and at the level of brand vs artist. Although Kruger has yet to make a concrete statement against Supreme, battle them in court, or even directly address them, she crafted an interesting set of pieces for the Performa 17 Biennial in New York last year— she copied Supreme by putting a series of phrases on Metrocards, had phrases in her typeface all over a skatepark in Chinatown, and collaborated with Volcom for a performance piece in SoHo.