The Twigs vs. FKA twigs: May the best twig win

The last attempt at forcing a battle royale of the “twigs” ended in a stalemate back in 2014, when a judge refused to grant the sisters a restraining order that would’ve forced Barnett to change her name—except now they’re back once more, after a decade of near-total silence, demanding she change her stage name or pay the price (literally; they’re asking for seven figures). But watch out, Twigs (duo): twigs (singer) is finally biting back. According to court papers filed this past Friday, Barnett has launched a lawsuit of her own, accusing The Twigs of improperly “weaponizing” trademark law at their convenience in order to score a windfall of cash.  

For whatever it’s worth, there does seem to be a bit of a pattern here. Three years ago, The Twigs accused Paste of trademark violation (which puts us in quite impressive company, seeing as we’re sitting alongside none other than the artist behind EUSEXUA) for occasionally using “the Twigs” or “Twigs” as a shorthand for The Lemon Twigs in a feature. It was all rather ridiculous, considering that the article was very obviously a profile about the New York City rock band, not the Good sisters’ project. There was absolutely no potential for confusion there.

But now that we’re hearing Barnett’s story, though, we’re left to wonder: Who else has The Twigs threatened behind the scenes? Who will they come for next? It’s true that they have their name trademarked, so, really, the world is their oyster. Twigs Hair Salon in New York City, maybe? Potentially shoptwigs.com? The Simsbury restaurant, Twigs? Twigs Fabrics & Wallpaper, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year? Twigs Cafe in Pennsylvania? Baltimore School of the Arts afterschool program, TWIGS? A particularly dead tree that the band happens to cross paths with on a nature walk? At this rate, the sisters will have to litigate their way through every small business, school program, and piece of kindling in America before they can claim uncontested dominion over a word that has been in the English language since approximately the 14th century. Which—and I cannot stress this enough—is a word for a small stick. (Thankfully, it seems that Michelle Branch has been marked safe in all of this.)

Look, trademark law exists for good reason, and we’re not lawyers. But there is something profoundly silly about waging a decade-long legal crusade to assert exclusive ownership of a common noun—especially when your opponent is a boundary-pushing, genre-defying popstar who has been specifically going by “FKA twigs” since 2014 to avoid this exact problem. The “FKA” literally stands for “formerly known as.” She already gave you the courtesy of a disambiguation! There’s only a finite number of concessions a person can make before the only remaining option is to countersue, and it appears Barnett has finally arrived at that threshold—unless, I suppose, she changes her name to “FKA FKA twigs.”