So here's a spicy one brewing right here in the 512 — an Austin-based fragrance company is hauling country music WAG Brittany Aldean (yeah, Jason Aldean's wife) into court over her new perfume line called VADA.
The local brand is claiming there's some serious overlap between what Brittany launched and what they've already got going on — whether that's branding, trade dress, or something else in that neighborhood. The details are still shaking out in the legal filings, but the bottom line is an Austin business felt strongly enough about it to lawyer up and go the lawsuit route.
Brittany Aldean has been building out her personal brand pretty aggressively over the past few years — lifestyle content, beauty plays, the whole influencer-to-entrepreneur pipeline. VADA appears to be her latest push into the product space, but now it's got some legal turbulence thanks to this Austin company saying 'hold on a second.'
It's one of those only-in-Austin situations where a scrappy local brand ends up squaring off against someone with a massive social media following and a country music household name attached to them. Courts are a great equalizer though.
We'll be watching how this one plays out. If you've got ties to either side of this — or just have strong opinions about fragrance intellectual property law (hey, no judgment) — you know where to find us.