For more than 40 years, Tangle Creations has been perfecting the art of what just might be “the original fidget toy.”
Created by Tanglemaster Richard X Zawitz, Tangle is art, it’s a toy, and it’s a brand that is familiar to millions. In a 2021 interview with The Toy Book, Zawitz said that he merged the natural and human universes together to find infinity and what he dubbed the Tangle — a portmanteau of “tangent angle” — a series of 90-degree curves that can contain its energy in an elegant, infinite manner as it is twisted, turned, shaped, and sculpted.
While his creations have seen imitators over the years, perhaps nothing has been as blatant as a series of sculptures that appeared in the windows of “everyday luxury” retailer Aritzia this spring. At stores in the U.S. and Canada, sculptures that look like Zawitz’s creations popped up accompanied by TikTok videos of their construction.
“Copying of Intellectual property is rampant in our industry as we all know, and Tangle is particularly victimized by intellectual property (IP) theft, but this instance of a major retailer copying Tangle is one of the most blatant infringements we have experienced in our 42 years of being in the Tangle business, it’s downright shameful,” Richard X Zawitz told The Toy Book on Friday.
Last month, Zawitz filed a lawsuit* against Aritzia in a Northern District Court in California.
Commenting on the filing to the Toronto Star, an Artitzia spokesperson said “These sculptures were created by Aritzia’s in-house designers who strive to create an Everyday Luxury, aspirational shopping environment for our clients. Boutique visual displays are seasonal in nature and have been taken down in the normal course.”
You can learn more about the case in the CBC News video below.
For more happenings from the world of Tangle, check out the 2023 Classics & Specialty issue of The Toy Book, available May 10.
*The case is Tangle, Inc. v. Aritzia, Inc., 3:23-cv-01196 (N.D. Cal.)
