[imagesource: Polo SA]

I have very little interest in fashion so I Googled famous quotes.

Your man Ralph Lauren popped up with, “I don’t design clothes. I design dreams.”

Okay, Ralph.

He also said that “Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It’s not about brands. It’s about something else that comes from within you.”

In that case, he might not be too bothered that knock-off South African wannabe Polo brand being allowed to keep flogging clothes.

Business Insider SA reports:

Polo clothing in South Africa will continue to enjoy trademark protection going back as far as 46 years, after a near-thing victory in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

It should retain that legal protection even though South Africans may be buying the entirely different version of Polo sold in SA, said a majority of three justices of the court, while under the impression they are buying from America’s Ralph Lauren fashion house.

South Africans are being duped and they don’t even know it.

The major difference to look out for involves which way the horse (or pony) is facing. Ralph Lauren’s actual, legit Polo clothing sees the pony facing left and in South Africa, ours faces to the right.

Up top, that’s the Polo South Africa logo. Below is Ralph Lauren’s Polo logo:

Image: Ralph Lauren

It’s a little thing but hey, that’s what fashion’s all about.

Seth has been banging this drum for years. He called it out way back in 2014, and once more in 2017.

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruling overturns a previous high court ruling which found the South African trademark should be revoked.

Polo South Africa, founded in 1976, owns the local trademark rights to the word “Polo” and the horse motif.

Ralph Lauren launched its Polo brand in 1967, and an agreement spanning back to the 1980s means the global brand only seems cosmetics and perfume products featuring the Polo logo in South Africa.

You can read more about the legalese of it all via Business Insider SA.

However you look at it, the fact that the local brand even goes as far as to keep up to date with the changes that the real Ralph Lauren brand makes is telling. They hopped straight on the international launch of the oversized Polo logo, and are clearly not trying to forge their own identity in any way

[source:businsider]