Wassily Kandinsky : Amsterdam
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Issue #00014 : February 12, 2026
Good day dear readers,
I’ve spent this week dealing with something every successful designer eventually faces: fighting to protect what you’ve built from people who are too inauthentic and insecure to create something original.
There’s a scene near the end of The Founder where one of the McDonald brothers confronts Ray Kroc in a bathroom. He says: You could have opened your own restaurant. You could have copied our system and done it yourself somewhere else. So why did you have to take it from us? Kroc’s answer is simple: “That name. That glorious name. McDonald’s. It’s wide open. Limitless. It could be anything, whatever you want it to be. It sounds like... America.”
He could see it everywhere.
I face the same issue with my business. It’s a valuable mark that works in Italian, Spanish, Chinese, English, Arabic—it has an aura that transcends language. It’s why people keep trying to take pieces of it. The most valuable brand names communicate luxury without even trying, like Scalamandre, Rubelli, and Loro Piana.
Here’s the strange part about intellectual property: everything is inspired from what came before. That’s how creativity works—you stand on the shoulders of others. The line gets crossed when inspiration becomes appropriation, when someone uses your name to trick customers or damage what you’ve spent decades building.
We tried handling this the civilized way with conversations, negotiations, and cooperation. They forced us into court. Fine. Italian legal briefings are works of art, by the way—romantic, historical, even literary. Our lawyer called the opposing party “a scoundrel” in this week’s filing, which gave me a little laugh.
What’s clarifying about being forced into a fight is how it sharpens your purpose. I thought I was already driven. Then someone handed me a million-dollar legal bill and I realized what I’m here for: to protect a legacy that belongs to more than just us. As the saying goes: pressure turns coal into diamonds, and fighting for something you believe in has a beautiful way of focusing the mind.
So while I manage that, we’re doing what we do here: watching where the industry’s moving, spotting opportunities, and making sense of the noise. This week that means understanding why affluent Californians are flooding Vegas, what Google’s algorithm changes mean for your marketing, and why art is better than any diet.
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