Adidas has launched a lawsuit against Australian fashion label White Fox for allegedly infringing the sportswear brand’s three-stripe trademark. At a first court hearing in Sydney on Friday, White Fox’s lawyers argued that the four stripes on its clothing are decorative and do not act as a brand mark.
Justice Ian Jackman of the Federal Court of Australia set the case down for a hearing in early 2027, with the trial expected to last three to four days.
Adidas filed the claim against White Fox Boutique on 18 September, alleging that the label’s four-stripe sweatpants, lounge shorts and socks are “substantially identical with or otherwise deceptively similar” to its own well-known three-stripe designs.
It added that the way the products were sold and promoted could lead shoppers to believe Adidas made, permitted or approved the garments.
“There’s an intention to trade off our reputation,” Patrick Flynn SC, for Adidas, told the court. “This is a pretty simple matter.”
Ed Heerey KC, the representative for White Fox, said: “Obviously Adidas has a reputation. Their own slogan is that it’s the brand with three stripes. Emphasis on the three.”
Heerey said White Fox would dispute that its designs were deceptively similar or that consumers would in fact be misled, and pointed to comparable four-stripe items sold by Princess Polly, Glassons and Shein. Before the hearing, White Fox’s lawyers had also said they would cite Cotton On and Sportscraft. White Fox has not, so far, launched an official defence.
The evidence
White Fox’s social media posts suggest sales of four-stripe products began in January 2026. Adidas says it requested that the label take the products off sale on 19 March. The following day, an Adidas representative purchased a pair of plum-coloured lounge shorts with white stripes.
Adidas says its representatives then bought another 12 four-stripe items between May and July. They also photographed White Fox advertising on Sydney buses and at bus stops between April and June.
The claim also targets White Fox’s product imagery. Adidas alleges that some photos showed models wearing three-stripe Adidas shoes alongside White Fox clothing. One example is a June 2025 listing for White Fox-branded socks modelled with pink Adidas trainers. According to the court documents, a few days after proceedings were lodged, the image was edited to remove one stripe from the shoes. A week later, all three stripes were gone.
Adidas wants White Fox to stop selling the products and to hand over the profits it made from them. It is also seeking a declaration that the law was breached, plus damages, interest and costs.
A fast-growing DTC brand
White Fox was founded in Sydney in 2013 by Georgia and Daniel Contos. The couple own the business privately with Daniel’s mother, Melina Maceri.
The online retailer sells mostly hoodies, sweatpants and loungewear to teenagers and young adults and started selling in the UK in 2024. It has built its profile through influencers and heavy out-of-home advertising, with bus and billboard campaigns in Sydney, London and Los Angeles.
Its accounts show revenue of A$542 million (£282 million) across Australia and the US in the year to June 2025, with A$52 million (£27 million) spent on marketing. According to the Australian Financial Review, that revenue is four times the 2022 figure of A$121 million (£63 million).
Adidas reported revenue of €24.8 billion (£21 billion) in 2025, with apparel currently its fastest-growing area, with revenue up 35% in the second quarter of 2026.
A mixed record on stripes
Adidas’s three-stripe trademarks have been in force since 1952. In 2013, it prevailed in an Australian case involving Pacific Brands’ Dunlop and Grosby shoes, which bore four parallel stripes. The court ruled that three of the 12 shoe types at issue infringed its marks. It judged each design on its overall visual impression, including the width, spacing, contrast and placement of the stripes, and accepted that stripes can be decorative and still work as a trademark.
Heerey argued that the 2013 ruling does not carry over to clothing. He said it rested on the established use of side markings as branding on shoes and that clothing has no equivalent convention.
Outside Australia, Adidas has had less success. In 2023, a US jury rejected the trademark infringement claims against Thom Browne over its four-bar design, and in April, the Second Circuit upheld the rejection of Adidas’s attempt to reopen that case. Adidas has also lost some of its UK marks in the Thom Browne dispute, and in 2019, it was denied broad trademark protection for three stripes in the EU.
John Ferdinand, partner and trade mark attorney at leading Intellectual Property law firm, Marks & Clerk, commented: “Adidas has famously and repeatedly taken legal action against use of similar numbers of stripes such as this and, while not always successful (e.g. in the widely reported Thom Browne US litigation in 2023), the message to the market is clear – they are prepared to act if necessary.”
“There are arguments about whether the use by White Fox is infringing trade mark use or purely decorative and it will be interesting to see if settlement is reached. However, the key point is that, whether ultimately successful or not, Adidas are taking this step not just to address this particular issue but to prevent other possible similar product designs from ever reaching the market.
“Ultimately, they are sending a message to competitors that choosing to use a similar number of stripes in this way is a commercial risk which smaller brands than White Fox may well not be prepared to take.”
TheIndustry.beauty has contacted Adidas and White Fox.