If you needed any further proof that late-stage capitalism will eventually ruin everything you love, this week’s internet feud between Patagonia and a drag queen named Pattie Gonia should more than suffice. Patagonia, as anyone who has ever ordered a flat white or visited Colorado knows, is a beloved outdoor clothing brand whose colorful fleeces are coveted by everyone from boomers and tech bros to gorpcore-loving hypebeasts. Pattie Gonia, meanwhile, is the drag persona of Wyn Wiley, an Oregon-based performer, environmental activist, and the host of Save Her!, a climate-themed drag show currently touring the US. A tree-hugging drag artist and a granola-coded fashion brand would seem like unlikely foes, but thanks to a recent lawsuit—and the social media drama it has ignited—they’re now locked in an escalating legal battle. (Both Patagonia and Pattie Gonia declined to be interviewed for this story.)
The public feud kicked off last week when Pattie Gonia posted a video explaining how, despite her best efforts to avoid it, Patagonia was suing her for copyright infringement. She entreated the company to drop the lawsuit, and Patagonia responded on Instagram with an offer to settle if Pattie Gonia would stop selling merch with her name on it, refrain from using Patagonia’s logo, and withdraw all trademark applications. That went over about how you’d expect: Pattie Gonia doubled down, and more than a few of her 1.8 million followers took to Patagonia’s social media channels, leaving tens of thousands of comments in support. “This is so much wasted time and money that could be spent fighting for the planet,” she said. “Instead, Patagonia is taking me to court when I have offered them everything I could to avoid this. They chose this. Not me.”
The gist of the legal complaint is that by performing and selling merch under the name Pattie Gonia, Wiley is appropriating Patagonia’s brand identity in a way that might be misleading to consumers. The company is seeking only $1 in damages, but it’s also asking Pattie Gonia to pay its legal fees, which the performer says could amount to seven figures. “This is a corporation trying to erase an activist [and] a betrayal of Patagonia’s core mission,” Pattie Gonia says in one video, referencing Patagonia’s longstanding commitment to supporting environmental activism. “If they’re in business to save the home planet, why are they suing a climate activist?”
The optics of a billion-dollar company—even one that has pledged $100 million a year to protect the planet—taking a queer artist to court over a couple of stickers are unfortunate to say the least, but for anyone familiar with intellectual property law, the mechanics of the case are pretty typical. “Brands don’t take jokes very well,” explains Michelle Mancino Marsh, a partner at ArentFox Schiff in New York who specializes in IP disputes. “Coca-Cola attempted to stop the Enjoy Cocaine [posters] that were popular in the ’70s. Mattel sued Aqua over the ‘Barbie Girl’ song from the ’90s, and more recently, the Jack Daniel’s versus Bad Spaniels case, which was about a parody over a dog toy, went all the way to the Supreme Court.”
The main issue, Marsh explains, is that Patagonia believes consumers might confuse Pattie Gonia’s merch with the brand’s gear, or see Pattie Gonia’s name on an event and mistake it for a Patagonia endorsement. “All trademark law is grounded in consumer confusion,” she says.
More to the point, perhaps, not pursuing this case could open the door to others looking to use a version of the Patagonia name and logo on their products, some of whom might not be as ideologically aligned with the company as Pattie Gonia. “They’re not necessarily wrong,” says Marsh. “Over time, a trademark can lose its power by lacking enforcement, and there are many examples of that—band-aid, trampoline, escalator—these are all words that have become part of the English language, due in part to a company failing to protect its mark in the way that they’re describing.”