Limited liability companies for Nirvana and Marc Jacobs International have settled a lawsuit over the fashion brand’s use of an image that bears a striking resemblance to the grunge band’s iconic smiley face logo. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in court documents. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives and attorneys for both parties for comment and more information.
Nirvana sued Marc Jacobs International in 2018 after the company launched a “Redux Grunge” collection featuring a sweatshirt with a smiley face image similar to Nirvana’s happy face logo. The band’s lawyers argued, in their complaint, that the fashion brand’s “use of Nirvana’s copyrighted image on and to promote its products is intentional, and is part and parcel of a wider campaign to associate the entire ‘Bootleg Redux Grunge’ collection with Nirvana, one of the founders of the ‘Grunge’ musical genre, so as to make the ‘Grunge’ association with the collection more authentic.”