Yoko Ono Sued Over John Lennon-Themed Clothing Line
A Brooklyn fashion designer is suing Yoko Ono, claiming Ono’s recent Opening Ceremony clothing collection copied her work. According to the New York Post, Haleh Nematzadeh claims that Ono’s design team used ideas from her sketches, made a few changes and sold the designs as their own. Nematzadeh filed suit in Brooklyn federal court on Friday, pointing to similarities between both fashion lines, especially the motif of illustrated hands placed over body parts.
Yoko Ono Launches Fashion Line Inspired by John Lennon
Nematzadeh claims she met with photographers working for Opening Ceremony, the first store that sold Ono’s collection, last July in an attempt to get her own Gonna Walk the Night line in the store’s catalog. According to Nematzadeh, she was set for a shoot with the photographers, but they backed out and partnered with Ono instead, taking the designs with them.
Nematzadeh’s fetish-inspired line sports sheer fabrics and handprints superimposed over the chest and crotch areas. Ono’s fashion line also features sheer fabrics and handprints, but Ono has pointed to a series of drawings sketched in 1969 for her late husband John Lennon as inspiration. “I felt it was a pity if we could not make clothes emphasizing his very sexy bod,” she said last November. “So I made this whole series with love for his hot bod and gave it to him as a wedding present. You can imagine how he went wild and fell in love with me even more.”
To this, Nematzadeh fires back about Ono, “She’s trying to put fetish in context, but since when does fetish and John Lennon go together? When you think of the Beatles, you think of doves and trees, not that.”