Independent, not-for-profit and Indigenous-owned clothing label Clothing the Gap has been forced to rebrand after a two-year legal battle with US clothing giant The Gap.
Clothing the Gap will now be known as Clothing the Gaps, and the rebrand will be complete by July 31.
In April 2019 the founders – Gunditjmara woman Laura Thompson and non-Indigenous woman Sarah Sheridan – were contacted by The Gap. The company was given six months to transition to a new brand.
“We were shocked, and thought, ‘Wow, The Gap … they’ve sent us a letter?’ At this point we hadn’t even registered Clothing the Gap as its own entity – we’d probably made three items and done small runs of around just 1000 garments. We were surprised that we were even on their radar,” Thompson tells Broadsheet.
“We didn’t have any money to fight back with – we just didn’t have the resources to challenge them.”
