The legal battle between Patagonia, the upscale outdoor apparel company, and drag queen Pattie Gonia continues to escalate, with no resolution in sight.
Patagonia has been engaged in a protracted effort to settle a trademark dispute with drag performer Pattie Gonia, claiming she has been infringing on their brand. After unsuccessful settlement attempts, the case may proceed to trial next year.
The company, known for its iconic puffy jackets, initiated a trademark infringement lawsuit in January against Gonia, an LGBTQ and climate advocate who embraced her drag persona following a 2018 trip to the Patagonia region in South America.
Patagonia has endeavored to handle the situation delicately to avoid alienating its customer base, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community.
“We recognize any distress this may have caused, especially within the LGBTQ+ community,” Patagonia stated, expressing their sensitivity to the issue.
The conflict centers on Gonia, whose legal name is Wyn Wiley, allegedly breaching a 2022 agreement to honor the Patagonia brand. The company claims that her 2024 trademark application for “Pattie Gonia” has inflicted “irreparable harm” on their brand, according to the lawsuit.
Despite “extensive settlement discussions,” the two sides “were ultimately unable to reach a resolution,” according to a federal filing submitted by both sides in the lawsuit Monday.
They’ve agreed to head to trial in June 2027, though a date will need to be finalized by the judge.
The clothing company claimed that in 2022 they let slide Gonia’s environmental partnership with a water bottle company as long as the drag queen’s name “did not appear on any products and didn’t use Patagonia’s logos” — conditions she has since stopped following, court papers allege.
Pattie Gonia started hawking merchandise — including clothes — and promoting products that compete with Patagonia. And she implied a false connection between the two “by sending out thank you packages that included stickers of Patagonia’s logo with Pattie Gonia branding superimposed on it,” the papers claim.
This has “confused” customers, making it seem like the company sponsors the drag queen, they claim.
Meanwhile, Gonia claims she trademarked the drag persona so it couldn’t be “stolen from her.”
And she dismissed Patagonia’s concerns over customer confusion, saying in the court papers that, “No reasonable consumer is likely to confuse Patagonia’s clothing brand with the limited merchandise offerings of a touring drag queen/artist.”
Regardless, Gonia’s performances and outfits are all protected satire under the First Amendment, she claimed.
The drag queen said for years, the company has known about and signed off on her activities — even promoting her advocacy on Patagonia’s website.
If Gonia were to agree to Patagonia’s terms — withdrawing the trademark application, no longer using the mountain landscape logo and no longer selling clothes and merch under the drag persona — this would make “it impossible for [Gonia] to fund their advocacy and charitable work,” she alleged in court papers.
“It would effectively dismantle Wyn Wiley’s beloved and famous drag persona along with a community of over 600 artists and advocates that have raised over $3.7 million for nonprofits,” she alleged.
If the two sides could agree on Patagonia’s three terms, “we can work out everything else, and Pattie Gonia could continue as a performer and activist. We share common ground with them, including the goal of saving our home planet and creating a more inclusive outdoors,” the company said.
In her own statements Sunday, Pattie Gonia said her 2022 deal with the company “wasn’t a broad agreement about my future.”
Still, she said she would agree to stop using the company’s logo as a parody.
“Drag is built on parody, puns and jokes, but I’m willing to never parody their logo ever again,” she said.
