David’s fight against Goliath. A 61-year-old independent fashion designer from New York is taking on the empire represented by Kim Kardashian. Denise Cesare has her sights set on Skims, a brand of underwear and shapewear founded in 2019 by the Kardashian clan leader, particularly the “Fits Everybody” collection launched at the brand’s inception, according to Paris Match.
Indeed, for about a decade, the sixty-something has been selling clothes and swimsuits under the name Fits Everybody To A T, a trademark registered in 2015, four years before Kanye West’s ex launched Skims. According to her lawyer, Jessica Mathews, who spoke with the Daily Mail, this is a “classic case of confusion” with “a much larger company, backed by a celebrity, adopting a similar name, and rapidly saturating the market with its size, advertising, and the cultural influence of its co-founder.”
Why is Kim Kardashian being sued by a fashion designer? This legal battle has been going on for several years without ever being publicized, says Denise Cesare’s legal team in the Anglo-Saxon press. “We asked them to stop using her brand over two years ago. They refused. The US Patent and Trademark Office then rejected their trademark registration twice due to our client’s registration. Trademark law doesn’t care about your size or the number of your social media followers. It cares about who was the first to use it. Our client was the first, and had no choice but to file a complaint to protect her brand and her small business,” they stated.
After years of conflicts, the case finally landed in court on March 31, 2026, as reported by Paris Match. Denise Cesare is seeking damages and interest from Kim Kardashian, as well as reimbursement of her legal fees and an injunction prohibiting the Skims brand from continuing to label its Fits Everybody collection. In total, the fashion designer hopes to receive the “hundreds of millions of dollars in profits made under this label.” It remains to be seen whether the American justice system will be convinced by her arguments and rule in her favor, or allow Kim Kardashian to continue expanding her entrepreneurial empire, estimated at over $5 billion.
When Katy Perry lost her case against Katie Perry There is hope for Denise Cesare, as she is not the first independent designer to take on a celebrity’s business. On March 11, fate favored a certain Katie Perry, an Australian stylist who created her brand in 2006 before registering the name in 2018, as she went up against her namesake, American singer Katy Perry. The latter lost her case against the Australian fashion designer, despite selling her merchandise under her stage name in the land of kangaroos since 2009, without considering the registered trademark.
“It was an incredibly long and difficult journey,” reacted Katie Perry, who was prevented from using her brand name by Justin Trudeau’s partner during her legal ordeal, in a video posted on her Facebook account, “but it confirms what I have always believed: registered trademarks must protect businesses of all sizes.” Only time will tell if Denise Cesare will have a similar fate in her battle against Kim Kardashian.
