The reason behind Kim Kardashian's lawsuit over "knockoff" furniture

Kim Kardashian's frequently contentious interior design style is coming under closer examination. This week, Kardashian was sued by the estate of minimalist contemporary artist Donald Judd, who claimed that the fashion and beauty entrepreneur had encouraged “cheap knockoffs” of his furniture designs.

The lawsuit is based on a 2022 YouTube video that Kardashian uploaded, in which she offers a tour of the Skkn by Kim headquarters, her brand-new beauty company at the time. (The video, which the lawsuit said had about 3.7 million views, appeared to be taken down after the lawsuit was filed.)

Kardashian highlights the sleek, large-scale hardwood table in her workplace, along with a matching set of chairs that are precisely designed to slip beneath it. Together, these elements give the piece a strikingly brutalist sculpture-like appearance, rather than just functioning as a dining table.

Kardashian pulls out a chair to reveal the camera and remarks, "These Donald Judd tables are really amazing and totally blend in with the seats."

Judd was a sculptor and artist who gained recognition for his industrial materials and clean, complete shapes in his minimalist creations. The table and chairs at Kardashian's workplace, as seen in the film, are reminiscent of Judd's well-known La Mansana Table and Chair 84, which were initially manufactured in 1982 and have since gained fame among furniture designers and collectors. These designs are still produced and sold by the Judd Foundation, but they are expensive—the table is priced at $90,000, while the chairs are sold for $9,000 apiece.

However, the Judd Foundation claimed in the complaint filed on Wednesday against Kardashian and Clements Design—the interior design company she collaborated with to create the Skkn office space—that Kardashian's products were not genuine items. (And even if they could, according to the foundation's court brief, "it explicitly bans consumers from using purchased Donald Judd furniture for marketing and promotional reasons.)

The foundation alleges unfair competition, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, misleading promotion, and false endorsement of the copycat products.

According to the foundation's petition, "Consumers who watched the video or read the media coverage were misled to believe Ms. Kardashian's tables and chairs were authentic Donald Judd pieces." It claims that the money made from using Judd's name by Kardashian and Clements Design is what it is pursuing.

According to the court document, Clements Designs maintained it never asserted that the tables and chairs were genuine Judd works and instructed the organization to resolve its dispute with Kardashian.

The design firm said in a statement that there were "obvious key differences" between Judd's concepts and the components they created for Kardashian's workplace.

According to Clements Design, "the Judd Foundation's previous counsel acknowledged these differences and since then, we have not heard from them in over a year, and we are now being blindsided with a lawsuit." The Judd Foundation refused to agree to a fair settlement at the time despite efforts to settle this dispute peacefully. These assertions are wholly unfounded.

Even more insulting, the lawsuit says that Kardashian's knockoffs appeared to be made of plywood, a material that the Judd Foundation does not approve of.

The lawsuit claims that "these cheap knockoffs passing for genuine Donald Judd tables and chairs damage the Donald Judd brand." "The cheap knockoffs will be seen by consumers, who will mistakenly associate the low-quality pieces with the Donald Judd brand," the lawsuit claims.

According to the lawsuit, the organization also asserted that it offered to swap out the fake tables and chairs for real ones at a reduced cost in exchange for Kardashian retracting her statements and altering the footage.The lawsuit states that Kardashian's representatives offered to remove the video but not to disavow it, as well as to promote the Judd charity in a social media post, both of which were refused by the charity.

Judd, who passed away in 1994, was quite picky about who was permitted to produce and market his ideas, and he was especially concerned about the caliber of the materials that were utilized. Only a select few establishments, including the Salon 94 gallery in New York and the MoMA Design store, are permitted to sell his furniture.