Italic, an e-commerce marketplace selling luxury goods at discounted prices, is facing a second lawsuit stemming from its comparative advertising strategy after candle company Diptyque settled its claim against the startup last year, The Fashion Law first reported. Athletic wear brand ALO Yoga filed a complaint in federal court earlier this week alleging that Italic’s marketing constitutes false advertising and violates ALO’s trademarks, in part because of its “depictions and purported comparisons involving ALO products,” according to the suit.
ALO, which is based in Beverly Hills, CA, said in the lawsuit that it first began using the ALO name to sell its products in 2006. Italic, ALO’s complaint alleges, used the ALO name in its ads to associate the two brands and “trade on ALO’s goodwill.” ALO’s complaint is focused on two particular sets of ads by Italic it claims are misleading — for a sports bra and a pair of leggings, which Italic’s ads told consumers were “the same as [those] sold by ALO in all respects except for the price.”
Italic works directly with manufacturers of high-end goods to sell comparable, unbranded products at 50-80% less, according to the company’s website. While the manufacturers themselves are anonymous on Italic’s platform, it sells products from factories that work with brands including Prada, Christian Louboutin, and Givenchy, its founder Jeremy Cai told TechCrunch in a 2018 interview. The company makes profit through charging its users a $120 annual membership fee to shop on Italic, it says.
The ads in question, which have appeared on buses and billboards, state that the sports bra and leggings sold on Italic’s site are made using the “same manufacturer” as ALO Yoga, called Intramural Goods. ALO claims in the suit that this statement is false because Intramural Goods does not make leggings or sports bras for the company, according to The Fashion Law.
Candle-maker Diptyque ended up settling the similar suit it brought against ALO last year. Diptyque had claimed Italic engaged in false advertising, unfair competition, trademark infringement, and copyright infringement in an ad campaign comparing the low price of its own candles to that of Diptyque’s more expensive candles, despite what Diptyque said were material differences between the two products in terms of their quality.
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