Dueling bikinis

Not that I’ll ever be in the market for one, but these little denim and crocheted bikinis are plenty cute. Not that I’d pay a couple hundred bucks for a bathing suit. Not that I’d put on a bikini, unless I were young and slender enough to wear one, neither condition is likely to ever be the case.  Not all that comfortable looking, either. And I’m thinking that the combination of denim (for the triangles) and yarn (for the trim and straps) precludes ever jumping into the water for a dunk and cool off. But plenty cute.

The one on the right – or is it the left – is a Kiini, sold by Ipek Irgit’s company, Kiini, and – at least according to her copyright application, and to the various lawsuits Irgit has launched – her very own invention.

The one on the left – or is it the right – is the creation of Maria Solange Ferrarini, a Brazilian street artist who’s been selling denim-crocheted bikinis on the beach in Bahia for years. Make that a couple of decades.

Anyway, a few years back, Irgit – recently returned from a vacation to Brazil, when she’d spent some time on the Bahian beaches – was jobless, aimless, and hanging out:

…on the beach on Long Island, wearing a handmade-looking bikini with crochet and exposed elastic straps, trying to figure out what to do and who to be…

On the Montauk sand, Ms. Irgit was playing paddle ball with a friend, the restaurateur Serge Becker, when he complimented her striking bikini. As Ms. Irgit would later put it, this was the spark that motivated her to start a business. Why not create more of these distinctive bathing suits? Why not become a bikini-maker? (Source: NY Times)

So like any good wannabe entrepreneur who knew a reasonably good idea when she heard one, Ms. Irgit decided to run with the idea. Next thing you know, they were being manufactured in China for about $29 each, and selling in the States for $285.

At first, sales languished. Then the Kiini got an Instagram plug from a model, and it took off. It was featured on Vogue.com and getting shout-outs in The Sunday Times of London’s style mag and in People. The Kiini was for sale at Barney’s.

Inevitably, imitators emerged and Irgit’s lawyer suggested she copyright her design, which she did. Copyright in hand, Irgit became increasingly inflamed by her imitators.

“My biggest challenge right now is the copiers around the world. People say I should be flattered but I despise all of them. It just shows a very ugly face of humanity to me.”

Well, there’s a very ugly face of humanity. And then there’s a very ugly face of humanity.

Irgit first went after Victoria’s Secret, suiting them for copyright infringement. That suit was settled. She then took on Neiman Marcus and two swimwear companies. Her suit:

…accused them of unfair competition, misleading consumers about the origin of the swimsuits and violating Kiini’s “trade dress.” In lay terms, Kiini was saying that any consumer in the world who saw a crocheted-and-exposed-elastic bikini would assume it was a Kiini.

Fast forward, and the crochet has begun to unravel. Despite Irgit’s claims that she was the mother of the Kiini invention, it became increasingly clear that the idea originated with Ferrarini.

There was Irgit’s recent Brazilian beach vacation. There was Becker’s recall that Irgit had told him that she’d gotten the bikini there. There was a pre-Kiini picture of some Ferrarini-bikini-wearing British celeb that appeared in the Daily Mail before Irgit “invented” the Kiini.

And then there’s what seems to be the smoking gun: a picture that Irgit used as the “specs” for the Chinese manufacturers of “her” Kiini.

On the elastic [of the bikini bottom], in marker, was a phone number, the words “Trancoso, B.A.” and the signature of Solange Ferrarini.

Hmmmm.

Irgit has withdrawn her suit. Neiman Marcus and other retailers are selling crocheted bikinis labeled as “inspired by Solange Ferrarini”. And Ferrarini is receiving compensation. (By the way, an attorney involved on the anti-Kiini side of the dueling bikinis situation had worked on behalf of the Trump University plaintiffs. So he knows a fraud when he sees one.)

Despite folding on her bathing suit suit, Irgit is hanging tight to her own evolving version of how the Kiini came about. According to her creation myth, she came up with the idea as a child in Turkey, and her mother and grandmother made them for her. (Is it just me, or does crocheting a bikini sound like an odd thing for a Turkish grandmother to be doing for her 10 year old granddaughter 30 years or so ago…)

The bikini she was wearing on the fateful day when Becker admired it? Despite Becker’s recall that she told him she’d gotten the bikini in Brazil, Irgit maintains that she made it all by her lonesome.

Irgit, meanwhile, is facing a suit of her own, in a federal court in California “citing unfair business practices and asking for a public apology.”

While it’s not all that clear what’s going to happen with all this:

…the allegations are notable to other experts in intellectual property law. “The role of truth in our judicial system is central,” said Jeanne M. Heffernan, a partner in the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. “Here you have a woman who appears to have taken the I.P. of someone else and registered it as her own — and then, it seems, had the audacity to sue an industry over something she did not create and may have stolen. If true, it’s breathtaking. I would think Victoria’s Secret would want to take a second look at their settlement.”

Irgit is frothing about those coming after her, characterizing them with words such as “bully” and “scumbag.”

“What do they tell their children at the dinner table about how they make money?” Ms. Irgit wrote, saying she imagined them as film characters like Dr. Evil, from “Austin Powers,” and Maleficent, from “Sleeping Beauty,” attaching .gifs of them to illustrate her point.

Sounds like an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bit of projection to me.

I hope both Ms. Irgit and Ms. Ferrarini get what’s coming to them.