The beef is real
Adidas is coming for White Fox, and the vibes are highkey litigious. The sportswear powerhouse has officially hit the Sydney-based retailer with a lawsuit in the Federal Court, claiming White Fox is selling clothes with a four-stripe design that’s way too close for comfort to their iconic three-stripe trademark.
Adidas claims they’ve been asking White Fox to pull the gear since March, but the brand—which is lowkey taking over the fits of teens and young adults from Australia to the US and UK—refused to play ball. Real talk, the stakes are massive: Adidas is looking for damages, demanding White Fox cough up the profits from those specific items, plus interest and legal fees.
The allegations
The court heard that White Fox isn't just selling similar-looking threads; Adidas alleges the brand is trying to "trade off our reputation." Things got even sketchier when Adidas pointed out that White Fox’s marketing materials—like billboards and social media posts—have featured models wearing genuine Adidas kicks paired with their own four-stripe lounge gear.
Adidas claims this is a calculated move to trick you into thinking the two brands are linked. After Adidas lodged court documents last month, the company claims White Fox tried to do some damage control by digitally editing the stripes off the shoes in their photos.
White Fox's defense
White Fox has yet to file a formal defense, but their lawyers dropped a hint to Justice Ian Jackman that they’re going to argue "everyone else is doing it." They plan to call out other major Aussie labels like Cotton On, Sportscraft, and Glassons as evidence that striped designs are standard industry fare.
Why it matters
For White Fox, this is a major test of their meteoric rise. They’ve grown fast, pulling in AU$542m in revenue by mid-2025—a massive 4x jump from 2022. But if they lose this, it’s a total L for their bottom line. Adidas doesn’t play when it comes to their branding; they already successfully sued Pacific Brands over a similar four-stripe shoe back in 2013. A three to four-day trial is on the books for early next year, so stay tuned—the plot thickens.
