We told you in December 2007 that Van Cleef & Arpels was suing Heidi Klum over her clover shaped jewelry line for Mouawad that resembled their Alhambra line. Late last year the law suit was dismissed as Klum and Mouawad has settled out of court with VC&A with the details undisclosed. But it was only a matter of time before the result was revealed with Klum revealing to the LA Times that she is looking for new licensing deals but will no longer design jewelry anymore.
When asked how her licensed brands are doing, she replied:
I do a bit of that. I do want to do more. Some things have started and closed. Like I don’t do the jewelry anymore, which I loved doing. Unfortunately, I did have a partner who … maybe wasn’t as knowledgeable in terms of setting up a business. I worked five years very hard on that. But we stopped because we had a lawsuit with Van Cleef & Arpels — they wanted to have the clover, even though our designs had never matched, I don’t know how may designs I had done in five years, maybe 800 different designs — but they just wanted to own the clover motif. So they went after everyone who does that — Louis Vuitton! — they said, “We own the clover.” And I was like, “Then who’s the person with the clover and the person with the heart?” I think when you’re a small company, which we are, we’re not a Van Cleef — they have a thousand lawyers. I’m a small fry next to that.
While I adore Klum as the Project Runway host, I though her jewelry line for Mouawad was majorly inspired by VC&A’s Alhambra line, especially when Klum’s designs weren’t exactly affordable. Perhaps her lawyers saw the similarities and thought it smarter to settle no matter where Klum claimed her inspiration came from. For the record, the inspiration was reportedly a cathedral in Milan, Italy.
She doesn’t need to do jewelry like everyone else
So what? Klum is everywhere! I can’t see her anymore!