Heidi Klum shuts down jewellery business after lawsuit

WASHINGTON - German model Heidi Klum has revealed she has shut down her jewellery business, after she was taken to court by the exclusive gem firm Van Cleef Arpels.

Klum, 36, had launched a collection of designs for Mouawad five years ago, which soon became a huge success, selling out within moments of going on sale on TV shopping channels like QVC.

But she revealed that a lack of business experience, along with the lawsuit from the jewellery firm over a particular design, put an end to her dreams of becoming a jewellery designer.

“I don’t do the jewellery anymore, which I loved doing. Unfortunately, I did have a partner who… maybe wasn’t as knowledgeable in terms of setting up a business. I worked five years very hard on that,” Contactmusic quoted her as having told the Los Angeles Times.

“But we stopped because we had a lawsuit with Van Cleef and Arpels - they wanted to have the clover, even though our designs had never matched, I don’t know how may designs I had done in five years, maybe 800 different designs - but they just wanted to own the clover motif.

“So they went after everyone who does that (and) they said, ‘We own the clover’. I think when you’re a small company, which we are, we’re not a Van Cleef - they have a thousand lawyers. I’m a small fry next to that. That’s a sad lesson to learn.

“That’s how life is. You have to set yourself up from the very beginning properly,” she added. (ANI)