Rihanna wins fashion case

Local News
Rihanna won a permanent ban on Topshop selling T-shirts using her image — and an order that Philip Green’s high street fashion chain must pay her estimated legal costs of almost £1 million.

Rihanna won a permanent ban on Topshop selling T-shirts using her image — and an order that Philip Green’s high street fashion chain must pay her estimated legal costs of almost £1 million.

Mailonline

Topshop owners Arcadia Group were ordered by Justice Birss at the High Court to pay £200 000 of this within 14 days, even though he found the size of her bill “startling” and “somewhat surprising”.

The Chancery Division judge ruled in July that fans of the 25-year-old singer from Barbados, who was not in court, might have been deceived into thinking that she had endorsed the T-shirt.

Topshop had sold the garment — which bore an image of her taken from a photograph — between March and August 2012. The judge said sale of the T-shirt without her permission was “passing off”.

Justice Birss ruled that it was “right and fair” that “style icon” Rihanna should be granted an injunction to prevent any future similar wrong use of the “unflattering” image.

He said Topshop could appeal to the Court of Appeal against his ruling.

But if his decision is upheld, he will then assess the amount of damages due to the singer — and how much is due in legal costs.

The judge said Rihanna’s lawyers gave an estimated legal bill of £919 000 —“figures I find startling”.

He said he could not safely use those figures to decide what interim payment should be made today to Rihanna pending a full damages assessment. He eventually settled on a “reasonable” £200 000.

Rihanna also sought the return of any unsold T-shirts, but the court in Central London heard that all 12 000 had been sold — and only five were left and kept for the legal action.

The judge had originally found that “a substantial number of purchasers are likely to be deceived into buying the T-shirt because of false belief that it has been authorised by Rihanna herself.”

Given her current tie-up with high street rivals River Island, the judge ruled that the Topshop T-shirt would be damaging to the style icon’s goodwill and a loss to her merchandising business.

“It also represents a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere,” ruled the judge.

The judge said it was “right and fair” to grant her a permanent injunction after being told that Topshop had failed to promise not to use her image on T-shirts in the future.