Skirt!®, The Original and Only.

Over the past few weeks some of you may have learned of a situation with the website sk-rt.com that is changing their name due to the fact that they are facing litigation from skirt!® and our parent company, Morris Publishing Group, LLC, for trademark infringement of our registered trademark skirt!®.

Up until this point we were treating the matter confidentially, but many of you know us, and it's hard for us to keep quiet for long.  We're skirt!® (note the registered trademark) and to that end, we've been skirt! for 14 years!

So, here's the official story from skirt!®.  We have no issue with the site in question and their business other than the fact that they called themselves (phonetically) "skirt" as well.  We are confident that they infringed upon our mark through their promotional actions, their artwork and their site geared toward women.  It got to a point where we were running into too much market confusion between their site and ours, even to where people were confusing people and similar promotional efforts.

As a result, we acted in a manner that would protect our brand and our readers, viewers and advertisers by telling them to stop.  Given evidence, they agreed to change their name. That's pretty much it.  

While we consider imitation the greatest form of flattery, we've also spent immeasurable time and energy (not to mention legal fees) creating and properly registering our marks to ensure brand equity with our consumers. As a result, we take infringement seriously since it undermines our brand and the trust that it carries with our readers.

A quick factual history:
In 1994, a magazine dedicated to women started in Charleston, South Carolina by Nikki Hardin who had $400 and a quest to read something interesting for women.

In December 1996, an application to register “SKIRT” as a federal trademark was submitted, and it became registered on September 30, 1997.

In 1998, skirt!® launched a website prominently using the registered trademark SKIRT® under the domain skirtmag.com  It was a tiny website at first, but one that really represented the magazine. (And yes, it had the flower and the beginnings of the look and feel you see today.)

In 2004, Morris Communications purchased skirt! Magazine and the skirt!® brand.

In 2006, skirt! began licensing skirt!® content to other markets outside of Morris and began publishing books
called skirt! books.  Some of our early markets included: Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Columbia, Savannah, Augusta, Jacksonville, etc...

In early 2007, skirt.com was purchased and pointed to skirtmag.com. Later in the year, the skirt!® digital launched a website designed to reflect the magazine and books in design.

(This design was in the making for over a year and always included the crazy flower that's been around for as long as we can remember in print!  All the art elements on our site were proudly ripped-off our 14-year-old magazine.)

The site was created to be a standalone product that would expand the ever popular skirt!® brand and voice into the digital space.

Today, skirt!® is a multi-media brand in over 20 markets and growing.

Today, skirt!® is building a growing and vibrant online community of women.

Tomorrow, skirt!® will be bigger and better than ever!

The other site has agreed to change their name and we wish them the best.  Our hope is that under their new name, they can experience some of the same success skirt!® has had through the years and the same success we look forward to achieving in the future.

We're really proud of our history and our products and are looking forward to the future of skirt!® in print, in books, online, and who knows where else we will land!   We invite you to continue the journey with us! We promise it will be a great ride.

Sincerely,
The original, the one-and-only, real skirt!®

‘nuff of that!  On to bigger and much better things...We’re having a birthday!  In less than a month skirt!® will be 14 years old.  To celebrate, we are kicking off a Power of the Flower Giveaway!