Quick - Hide, Hermes is Coming!
The Jelly Kelly.
This bag came out full force for the summer of 2004. Everybody has been snapping them up like hot cakes.
What are they?
They are bags that look a great deal like two popular Hermes handbags, the Kelly (a handbag) and the Birkin (more of a tote), but instead of being in leather, they are made out of rubber Jelly, the same as your Candie jellies for your feet.
These bags are popular on both coasts. VERY popular!
And Hermes was not amused.
Hermes was so not amused that they’ve gone after designers whenever they could to stop them from producing, distributing, or selling these bags.
Steven Stolman was one well known designer who was selling Jelly Kellys out of his shop in Southampton, NY until he received one of those nifty “cease and desist” letters from Hermes. Stolman insists that his interpretation of the Hermes handbag was more tongue-in-cheek than anything; in addition, the bags he sold were loose interpretations of the original and not 100% replicas of them.
As a side note, that was probably just as much fun for those Australians who had thought they coined the term Ugg. What, you don’t know what I’m talking about there? Well it’s a long story but basically American visits Australia. American returns to the US with Ugg boots. American sells boots to surfers, trademarks the name, and then sells boots to Deckers. Big US company, Deckers, goes after Australians, telling them they can’t sell Ugg boots anymore. Can you believe it?
Well, this is a slightly different case.
Either Hermes is worried about muddying their brand with a pedestrian rubber purse that sells for a fraction (as in 3 %) of what a real Hermes would cost or maybe they were thinking of doing something similar themselves? Doing the math, that means the original Hermes would run over $4000. How is that possible?
Well, you take anything that was leather and hand-crafted from a fashion house like Hermes and go to a rubber handbag that is machine made and heat sealed. Unlike Prada, who has their own low-end nylon collection, Hermes is probably only concerned about maintaining the exclusivity of their products and their luxury brand name as well as their reputation for only making top quality goods.
But is a Jelly Kelly the same thing as a Louis Vuitton counterfeit?
It depends on who you talk to.
Hermes feels that while they may not be classified as counterfeits, Jelly Kellys do infringe on their designs which they heavily protect, which as a fashion house is all about their intellectual property and branding. Many retailers, preferring not to be bothered with legal matters, have decided to drop ordering any more of them. (Wise move!)
What does that mean to us? Well, I don’t think Hermes is going to go after each and everyone of you ala another Napster fiasco.
However, if you do want a Jelly Kelly, you’ll have a much harder time getting one in the US this year than last.
And if you do end up buying one in Italy, good luck getting it past customs (lol - where the agents have been trained to identify them!!).
All is not lost, however. There are plenty of jelly totes and handbags to keep you happy this summer; they just won’t have the somewhat questionable “Jelly Kelly” moniker or resemblance to them.
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