The company that makes Ivanka Trump's brand secretly sold the first daughter's line under a different name

AP

Ivanka Trump's brand is secretly being sold under a different name.

Stein Mart, a discount retailer, is selling Ivanka Trump items relabeled as "Adrienne Vittadini Studio," a completely different fashion brand, Business of Fashion reported. G-III, the company that manufactures and distributes the Ivanka Trump brand, confirmed to BoF that it sold the merchandise under a different name to Stein Mart without informing the first daughter's company. 

"G-III accepts responsibility for resolving this issue, which occurred without the knowledge or consent of the Ivanka Trump organisation," a representative for G-III said in a statement to BoF. "G-III has already begun to take corrective actions, including facilitating the immediate removal of any mistakenly labeled merchandise from its customer."

Why would G-III switch the labels? Apparently, some Stein Mart shoppers don't want to purchase the first daughter's brand. An unnamed source that works at Stein Mart told BoF that one customer went as far as spitting on an Ivanka Trump blouse in front of a cashier. Currently, Stein Mart sells Ivanka's brand in stores, but not online. 

"We’ve had both labels for a while. We may see more Adrienne Vittadini in the short term," Stein Mart CEO D. Hunt Hawkins told BoF, saying that the decision to relabel the items was not politically motivated. "I’ve had an equal number of [customers] say that they don’t want and do want [the Ivanka Trump merchandise] in the store."

Label swapping is technically legal if all parties involved are aware (the company behind the Adrienne Vittadini brand declined to say whether or not it knew about the relabeling). Typically, a company will decide to swap labels when selling a brand to discount retailers to "protect" the brand by maintaining its exclusive and upscale reputation. 

Click here to read the full Business of Fashion story. 

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