Bradford Bulls were today set to take on one of the giants of Italian fashion in their latest battle.

The top rugby league team is seeking legal advice after designers at Moschino created a new hip logo - which resembles the Bulls' own design - and paraded it along the Milan catwalks as the latest in trendy streetwear.

But Bulls boss Chris Caisley has called in the lawyers to investigate whether the fashion label has breached its copyright by producing the chic T-shirt, which sports a bull's head design amid the phrase Moschino Bulls.

Bulls chairman Mr Caisley said the bull's head logo was a registered trademark and confirmed that the club was seeking legal advice about protecting its copyright.

"We jealously protect our intellectual property at the Bulls and we shall be referring this matter to our intellectual property lawyers," he said.

"We refer all matters like this to our lawyers for their advice as a matter of course."

But speaking from Milan, Moschino press director, Helen Cadario, said that the fashion house had not known about the similarity with the Bulls' logo and had not intended to infringe any copyrights.

She said: "We had absolutely no knowledge of the logo of the Bradford Bulls Rugby League team and if there's any resemblance with their logo it is totally accidental."

The fashion house refused to say anything more about the row.

The Milan-based label has stores in all the fashion capitals of the world including London, New York, and Paris and is well known for its outlandish designs.

The Bradford Bulls name and logo caused huge controversy in 1995 when it was picked in favour of the club's 90-year history and tradition of being called Bradford Northern.

Northern's boar head logo was dropped and instead came the Bulls' emblem which provoked uproar among die-hard Northern fans.

The Bulls name was chosen to help launch the new Super League in an explosion of razzmatazz with British clubs taking their lead from Australian clubs which have names such as the Raiders, Broncos, and Bulldogs.

But Mr Caisley, said in 1995, that the time had come to update the club's image and dump the word Northern.

He said: "The historical significance of that word has long gone. It doesn't fit in with the Super League concept to take the game worldwide. It's not easily marketable so we needed something else to take us into a new era."

Many other clubs also abandoned their traditional names to adopt new identities such as Leeds Rhinos, Halifax Blue Sox and Wigan Warriors.