'Twilight' studio sues to stop sale of Bella jacket

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'Twilight' studio sues to stop sale of Bella jacket

Tue Jun 15, 2010 @ 10:40AM PST

By Eriq Gardner

Twilight-1 We're sure the studio behind the "Twilight" movies doesn't want to break the hearts of young girls everywhere. But Summit has decided to stop a retailer from selling a jacket advertised as being worn by Bella Swan. 

The studio filed a lawsuit against women's fashion designer B.B. Dakota on Friday for copyright and trademark infringement. On the company's website, B.B. Dakota advertises a blue cotton canvas jacket like this: "Bella Swann (sic) wears this jacket in Twilight and scores the hottest vampire in high school, and so can you!"

Wow, what young Twi-hard could resist that product pitch? 

When the jacket first debuted in 2008, Women's Wear Daily wrote it was "the stuff that legends are made of." MTV's website remarked it "brings you this much closer to Robert Pattinson." Stylist.com called it "love at first bite, er, sight" with a price tag that didn't suck. And SoJones.com sang its praises as "very vampirelicious."

For more proof, Entertainment Weekly ran a short vignette on how the jacket got into the first film. Apparently, Kristen Stewart was supposed to wear a brown hoodie, but the color blue was thought to better match Stewart's brown hair. So costume designer Wendy Chuck made a dash to Nordstrom and picked something off the rack. "Wendy saved the day!" remarked director Catherine Hardwicke.

Wendy also opened the door to one of the best ambush marketing campaigns in years.

In the lawsuit, Summit seeks an injunction against further sale of the item, all profits earned from the jacket, and—the horror!—it wants B.B. Dakota to "deliver to Summit for destruction all Bella Jackets."

Where is Edward Cullen to save the day?

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The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. blog focuses on how the entertainment and media industries are impacted and influenced by the law. It is edited by Matthew Belloni with contributions from veteran legal reporter Eriq Gardner and others. Before joining The Hollywood Reporter, Belloni was a lawyer at an entertainment litigation firm in Los Angeles. He writes a column for THR devoted to entertainment law. Gardner is a New York-based writer and legal journalist. Send tips or comments to [email protected]

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