Zara fights Estée Lauder’s UK trademark claims over Jo Malone fragrance naming

Jo Malone is back at the center of the fragrance aisle, and Zara is arguing that its use of her name follows the very rules Estée Lauder once drew up. The dispute, filed in the UK High Court in March, is less about a bottle on a shelf than the luxury-adjacent mood Zara is selling in its product copy and on packaging.

The history makes the tension obvious. Estée Lauder bought Malone’s eponymous perfume brand and the rights to her name in 1999. Malone left in 2006, launched Jo Loves in 2011, and first worked with Zara in 2019 on the Emotions Collection. Now Estée Lauder has named Malone, Jo Loves and Zara’s UK business, ITX, in claims that include trademark infringement, passing off and breach of contract.

Zara’s defense is built around wording, and that wording is doing a lot of work. The product text cited in the case reads, “In collaboration with perfumer Ms. Jo Malone CBE, founder of Jo Loves.” Zara says the perfume bottles themselves carry only Zara branding, so the name appears in descriptions and on the back of packaging rather than on the front of the product. It also says Estée Lauder’s lawyers laid out naming principles in 2020 after complaining about a Zara Weibo post in China, and that those principles allowed forms such as “Jo Malone CBE,” “Ms Jo Malone,” “Ms Malone” or even “Jo” to distinguish the person from the brand.

That is the whole modern prestige-fragrance game in one sentence: sell the aura of a founder, the cachet of a name, and the shorthand of luxury, while keeping the bottle itself plain enough to argue the law is on your side. UK guidance says trade marks can protect branding, packaging and product names, which is exactly why this case lands so hard. Jo Loves’ own site reinforces the point by presenting Jo Loves as a luxury fragrance brand founded by Jo Malone, proof that her personal name still carries commercial weight even as it sits inside a new business identity.