Rock Wars: Nude Brands Loses Suit Against Stella McCartney

Apparently, the launch will go on. Nude Brands Ltd., a cosmetics company founded by the wife of U2’s Bono, Ali Hewson, lost a London court bid to block fashion designer Stella McCartney from introducing a new perfume this weekend.

Stella McCartney Ltd., a unit of L’Oreal SA, plans to begin selling the fragrance named Stellanude in the U.K. on Aug. 22, according to the judgment. Hewson’s Nude Brands has a European Union trademark on “nude” in capital letters and asked the London court for an order delaying sales of the perfume pending a full trial on trademark issues.

McCartney, daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney, has been designing clothing since 1995. Paris-based L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics maker, bought PPR SA’s YSL Beaute unit last year and gained the exclusive right to negotiate an accord to make fragrances under the Stella McCartney brand.

While Nude Brands might “ultimately prevail at trial,” the “massive disruption” that would be done to L’Oreal’s business if the order was wrongly granted would outweigh the damage to Nude Brands by refusing to grant it, Justice Christopher Floyd said today.

Delaying the sale of the product would cost the company “many millions of pounds in lost investment,” a witness for Stella McCartney Ltd. said at a hearing earlier this week.

The deadline for canceling advertisements has passed and 26,000 bottles of the product were delivered to stores, according to the judgment.