Samsung

Samsung China duped into collab with fake Supreme, looks to drop partnership after backlash

Damien Wilde | Dec 12 2018 - 7:55 am PT

Just yesterday, Samsung China made a strange announcement that would have shocked and maybe excited anyone interested in streetwear by partnering with NY-based uber-cool skate brand Supreme. The problem was that this actually wasn’t Supreme at all. It was, in fact, a group called Supreme Italia that found a copyright loophole to register the brand name in Italy.

Two representatives came on stage during the Samsung Galaxy A8s announcement to make bold claims about opening a flagship store in Beijing. Of course, this isn’t the Supreme NYC that has exclusive drops and where fans trade hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars just to be among the only people wearing Supreme logo-laden clothing.

Supreme NYC have come out and quickly slammed this collaboration commenting:

“Supreme is not working with Samsung, opening a flagship location in Beijing or participating in a Mercedes-Benz runway show. These claims are blatantly false and propagated by a counterfeit organization.”

This is a massive blow to hypebeasts all over the planet, as this Samsung x Supreme collab is now nothing but a sham. Samsung China Digital Marketing head, Leo Lau initially released a statement on his official Weibo account after heavy criticism from Supreme NYC and fans globally to clarify this ‘partnership’.

“We are collaborating with Supreme Italia, not Supreme NYC,” Lau said 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).”

But since he released those comments, Samsung China has come forward to respond officially to the heavy criticism and backlash from all sides.

Recently, Samsung Electronics announced we will collaborate with Supreme Italia in China at the launch event of Galaxy A8s. We are currently re-evaluating this cooperation, and we deeply regret the inconvenience caused.

Maybe we’ll never see an official Supreme collaboration with a smartphone brand, but if we do, it’s unlikely to be with Samsung any time soon after this incident. This entire episode has put a little bit of a dampener on the entire Samsung Galaxy A8s launch, which looks to be a solid device.