The battle of David against Goliath. A 61-year-old independent fashion designer from New York is taking on the empire represented by Kim Kardashian. The woman in question, Denise Cesare, has her sights set on the underwear and shapewear brand Skims, founded in 2019 by the Kardashian clan leader, specifically the collection “Fits Everybody,” which was launched at the brand’s inception, as reported by Paris Match.
Indeed, the sixty-year-old has been selling clothing and swimwear for about ten years under the name Fits Everybody To A T, a trademark registered in 2015, four years before Kanye West’s ex launched Skims. According to her lawyer, Jessica Mathews, who spoke to the Daily Mail, it is a “classic case of confusion” with “a much larger company, supported by a celebrity, adopting a similar name, and quickly saturating the market with its size, advertising, and the cultural influence of its co-founder.”
Why is Kim Kardashian being sued by a fashion designer? This legal battle has been going on for several years without ever being publicized, claims Denise Cesare’s legal team in the Anglo-Saxon press. “We asked them to stop using her brand over two years ago. They refused. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) then refused to register their mark on two occasions due to our client’s registration. Trademark law does not care about your size or the number of followers on social media. It cares about who was the first to use it. Our client was the first, and had no choice but to file a lawsuit to protect her brand and small business,” they state to our colleagues.
After years of conflict, the case has finally landed in the hands of justice since March 31, 2026, as reported by Paris Match, which specifies that Denise Cesare is demanding damages from Kim Kardashian, as well as reimbursement of her legal fees and an injunction preventing the Skims brand from continuing to label its Fits Everybody collection. In total, the fashion designer hopes that “the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits made under this name” will be awarded to her. It remains to be seen if the American justice system will be convinced by her arguments and rule in her favor, or allow Kim Kardashian to continue expanding her entrepreneurial empire, estimated at over 5 billion dollars.
When Katy Perry lost her case against… Katie Perry Hope remains for Denise Cesare, as she is not the first independent designer to take on a celebrity’s business. On March 11, fate was favorable to a certain Katie Perry, an Australian stylist who created her brand in 2006 before registering the name in 2018, who sued her namesake, the American singer Katy Perry. The latter lost her case against the Australian fashion designer, even though she had been selling her merchandise under her stage name in the land of kangaroos since 2009, without considering the registered trademark.
“It was an incredibly long and difficult journey,” reacted Katie Perry, who was prevented from using her brand name by Justin Trudeau’s partner during her legal journey, in a video posted on her Facebook account, “but it confirms what I have always believed: registered trademarks must protect businesses of all sizes.” Only time will tell if Denise Cesare will experience a similar fate in her battle against Kim Kardashian.
