In what could prove a slick piece of positioning, mid-tier Middletons appears to have sewn up the role of protector of original fashion design.

Headquartered in image-conscious Melbourne, the firm reports that it was successful in delivering a very unhappy Christmas for the imposingly named Dolly Girl, persuading Federal Court judge Justice Finkelstein to hold that the rag trader was guilty of drawing more than a hint of inspiration from Middletons’ client Mytiko just before Christmas.

Mytiko, a fashion label run by Muscat sisters Theresa and Karen -- in the terribly fashionable Chapel Street, of course -- called on the services of couture cops Middletons when it picked up a thread of Dolly Girl’s copycat ways.

The garment in question was the eponymous Mytiko pants, whose design and production the sisters Muscat had sweated over in their shop for more than a decade. However, no sooner had the sisters started to see their hard work flourish into success, cheaper and, Folklaw is assured, nastier versions of the strides in question started popping up in other stores. Even more alarmingly, women wearing the rip-offs were referring to them as “mytikos”. In fear of going the way of the ‘kleenex’ in the US or the ‘hoover’ in the UK, and disappearing into the bankruptcy void of genericism, the sewing siblings knew it was time to call on some professional help.

Mercifully for Mytiko, Justice Finkelstein would have none of Dolly Girl’s bleatings that it had simply bought its threads in China without any knowledge of the Chapel Street creations — honest!

In choosing a law firm, Mytiko would have had no trouble in sorting out Middletons’ CV from the pack. The self-styled rag-trade regulators have already acted for a flock of fashion babes including Bettina Liano, Review, Supre, Ellin Ambe, Dangerfield and AG.

Hairdresser’s lawsuit cut down to size

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A Sydney hairdresser found her claim for compensation given a short back and sides by the court after alleging she injured herself while cutting the hair of a particularly tall customer. Claiming her salon failed to provide her with a height-adjustable chair, the hairdresser said she suffered the tonsorial trauma after stretching up to reach the pate of the six-foot tall client. Forced to stand on tip-toe, she had obtained a pair of platform shoes to help her wield her scissors, she told the NSW Supreme Court

Already on the fringe of frustration with back and shoulder pains, the hairdresser said the final cut came when she felt her neck crack and she experienced pins and needles in her right arm. She alleged she was forced to leave work — no longer able to give a mullet or a mohawk -- and was apparently unable to wash her own hair for more than a week. (Obiter expects, however, that her pals at the salon would have done the decent thing and helped her out with that).

It seems her complaint, however, never came within a hair’s breadth of success, according to AAP reports. While the judge accepted her claim that her chair was faulty, he saw no causal connection between her work and her medical problems. A film of the hairdresser moving freely about the salon and driving a car helped him reach his decision. And he added that her claims for social security while working full-time didn’t exactly help her credibility.

Cutting to the chase, “Whatever problems are said to continue now are imaginary rather than real,” His Honour said.

Group scoot bonds spoil party

Its scooters for schoolies in that week of parties for teenagers finishing school. But stopping them short last year were misleading rental contracts and false accusations of damage, leaving many NSW schoolies to fork out bills of up to $1400.

The fashionable pootlers are the call of the day for the celebrating ex-students, allowing them to freely wiz about some small or high-rise town in Queensland, getting up to as much mischief as possible.

As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, Legal Aid Queensland is handling up to 10 cases in which schoolies were not told they were signing group contracts so that everyone involved lost their deposit of $250 if any of the scooters were damaged.

Queensland Car Rentals manager Kathleen Jones explained that contracts with joint bonds were offered to schoolies in the hope that peer pressure would squeeze them into driving more carefully.

The mind boggles at the restrictions that could be placed on these young people. Local councils could arrest all ex-students if anyone was caught doing drugs, bars could ban all schoolies if anyone underage entered. In fact, all flights could be cancelled if any schoolies were spotted even making their way up north.