The French luxury fashion house Céline, under the creative direction of the influential designer Phoebe Philo has been awarded trade dress protection for the design of the houses iconic luggage tote bag.

The fashion house was awarded legal protection on January 5th 2016 and the attributes of the bag that trade dress protection extends too is for "a three-dimensional configuration of a rectangular bag with extendable accordion-style sides, extruding parallel S wave designs on bag front, and rear, shield-shaped handle bracers designs on front and rear of bag. As placed on the front of the bag, the zipper represents the mouth of a face design in which the handle supports appear to be the eyes and the S wave designs represent the facial outline."

Since Phoebe Philo joined Celine back in 2008 the creative directors leather goods has been a hallmark of the brands success and as the Business of Fashion puts it has resulted "in double-digit growth for the company and a new roster of cult items, including the much copied luggage bag."  At the recent Vogue festival, Céline designer Phoebe Philo spoke to British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman about the success of her design aesthetic, "when I came to the house…Céline had no recognizable silhouette.” She said. However, this has certainly changed and the designer’s success has created an aesthetic that has transformed the brands products into some of the most recognise on the planet. According to Philo, Celine goods are positioned “as investment pieces that you can wear time and time again.” And this thinking has seen the reintroduction of different versions of the bag each year.

The effect of her innovative design has been coupled with a rise in imitations and now the brand has legal recourse.

The brand filed to register the design as a trademark back in August 2013. Now that Céline has legal protection over the shape, it may make it more challenging for Philo’s design to be copied. Major fashion brands like Christian Louboutin have successfully used the law of trade dress to protect for example the red sole of the designers signature shoes, Hermès to protect the shape of the Birkin bag and Alexander McQueen to defend and protect the copying of his designs.

But in order to acquire trade dress protection for the physical outward appearance of a product or the actual design of a bag or shoe isn’t that easy to prove. And for example in Celine’s case - it means having to show that the shape of the bag has acquired distinctiveness through secondary meaning. Simply put, this essentially means that a brand or a designer has to demonstrate that when a consumer looks at that bag they have come to recognize the shape of the design as being associated with the brand. (The same criterion that has enabled Louboutin to get legal protection over the colour red used on the sole of his shoes). The value of a specific type of evidence and the amount necessary to establish acquired distinctiveness will always vary according to the facts of  each case. But to prove distinctiveness and acquired secondary meaning is often quite a difficult undertaking and often is only really available for the designs of distinguished and well-recognised fashion companies that have large advertising spends and can therefore prove long terms use communicating the design to public, to the extent that there is evidence enough to prove that the design has acquired secondary meaning.

Its Trapeze Bag was awarded legal protection in May 2015.

Uniquely, with no social media or ecommerce strategy and the commercial success and brand identity of Céline being one that has primarily been dependent on the houses strong yet increasingly copied design aesthetic these legal moves are important strategic tools for the brand.