You read that correctly but we’ll say it again for good measure: Supreme is not collaborating with Samsung. Well, not that Supreme anyway.
At a launch event this week Samsung China’s head of digital marketing made some noise when he announced a partnership with Supreme, Hypebeast reports. The announcement was even elaborate enough to include bringing executives from Supreme on stage. Except he wasn’t referring to the real Supreme, as in James Jebbia’s Supreme, instead he was talking about Supreme Italia — a knock-off that’s technically legal in China.
After fans called out the collaboration a Samsung China representative clarified details of the partnership on his Weibo account, “We are collaborating with Supreme Italia, not Supreme NYC,” he says via translation. “Supreme NYC has no sales and marketing authorization in China, but Supreme Italia has obtained product sales and market authorizations in the Asia Pacific region (except Japan).”
During the event Supreme Italia’s representatives also claimed to be opening a seven story Supreme store in Beijing and has plans for a runway event for 2019. These claims lead to the real Supreme releasing a statement via Instagram Stories, “Supreme is not working Samsung, opening a flagship location in Beijing or participating in a Mercedes-Benz runway show. These claims are blatantly false propagated by a counterfeit organization.”
This isn’t the first time an elaborate fake Supreme in China has made news and, thanks international differences complicating intellectual property laws, it might not be the last. All of the attention however does cast a shadow on Samsung, and whether the legitimate company will continue its plans to work with a fake Supreme.
As for the real Supreme’s relationship with Samsung? Well they seem more like Apple people anyway.