What a Lovely Ankle, Dude.
Posted: August 19, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, General / Musings, Menswear | Tags: ankles, cropped jeans, cropped pants, cropped trousers, fashion, rolled jeans, style Comments Off on What a Lovely Ankle, Dude.
Last summer, we were treated to a new take on the skinny pants trend for men. In this go-around, it was sans socks, and the trousers were either hemmed several inches above the ankle or simply rolled up to resemble a pair of clam-diggers that had spent too much quality time in the clothes dryer. In the late Victorian era, you might have heard that an attractive woman had a “well-turned ankle”—because that was about the only part of her below the neck that cleared most of the enveloping layers in between. As anyone has recently offered such praise for women’s ankles?
We invite readers to share with us whether, at any point in the history of humankind, in any culture or territory, anyone has had anything exceptional to say about the allure of men’s ankles.
I have a photograph of my father at about the age of twelve, standing beside his nanny and his horse. He was wearing plus-fours, and as was correct for the period, he also wore socks that disappeared into the breeches. You see, guys: sometimes the old ways are the best ways. As the summer season unfolds, let us all sit back and take heed of the advice of a wise friend who has often reminded me, “Socks are important.”
Credit: Alan Behr
Keeping Control Over Your Brand
Posted: August 5, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, Childrenswear, Footwear, Intellectual Property, Menswear, Textiles, Womenswear | Tags: brands, fashion, fashion design, trademark Comments Off on Keeping Control Over Your Brand
In the movie A Hard Day’s Night (1964), unscrupulous menswear marketers lure George Harrison into their office, there to assure him that the two new shirts they put into his hands are essential to his self-esteem. When George says the goods are frightful, the head marketer comforts his team that, “within a month, he will be suffering a violent inferiority complex and loss of status because he isn’t wearing one of these ‘nasty’ things.”
The point was that the guiding spirits of the generation of the 1960s formed up against the commercialism and consumerism that were behind marketers’ attempts to pass off “nasty” goods as status symbols for insecure youth. How times have changed. Someone with a device in his pocket that pitches out brands and branding stories faster than summer rain drenches a field views branding and the commercial motives behind it in a much more positive light. Brands ignite consumer interest as never before, and brands win when they have good stories to tell—stories that create interest and become viral once consumers are engaged. Brands are, after all, nothing but good will with consumers, and once that is obtained, the message is spread most effectively by consumers imitating each other and aspiring to what each other has. The bad news that follows from the good is that consumers, in exchanging with each other messages about brands they know, are becoming as important in the control of a brand’s destiny as the brand’s owner—and its marketers.
For that reason, never has the creation and the protection of strong trademarks been more important for the fashion business. The value of the trademarks is applied directly to the bottom line in the form of good will. There are terrific fashion brands that own little else but their trademarks and related domain names—not the factories that make the clothes, not the stores in which they are sold, not even the photocopy machines in the corporate office. What they have are strong trademarks protected throughout the areas of current use and expected operations. The moral of the story: work with your trademark lawyer to develop, as early as possible, a solid and workable trademark protection program, and then stick to it by carefully searching and analyzing all new prospective trademarks and by registering them promptly as soon as the anticipated need arises. What have you to lose by not doing that? Only everything you may have.
Credit: Alan Behr
Do More But Restrain Yourself Too
Posted: July 10, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, Childrenswear, Footwear, Intellectual Property, Menswear, Textiles | Tags: brands, copyright protection, copyright registration, INTA, International Trademark Association, trade dress, trademark protection, trademark registration Comments Off on Do More But Restrain Yourself Too
Luxury, being the thematic opposite of necessity, must be at least as much about what you desire as what you need. Building a brand to fill that role requires both diligence and self-restraint.
A luxury brand and its products should be readily identifiable as superior to both existing and aspirational customers. That is not to say that that non-luxury brands and their products do not require legal protection; we are simply recognizing that the luxury premium adds a new class to the market—those aspirational customers—whose perceptions and desires are vital to the future of brands in the luxury sector. For that reason, and many others, it is particularly important for luxury brands to work with counsel to identify and protect all the important proprietary elements that are capable of being protected. That includes protection, where appropriate, by trademark (and trade dress) registration, design patent registration, and—something rather unique to the United States—copyright registration.
With few exceptions, it is generally better to err on the side of more rather than less when it comes to registrations. Styles and style names that will only be in the catalog for a season or two are usually not worth the trouble, but anything of medium to long-term consequence to the bottom line and brand value almost certainly is. In these posts, we will go into more detail about various forms of legal protection, but a key guideline is this: once each season, have a look at what engages the public with your brand and your products and how that engagement might lead you to adjust your legal protection program. There is probably no more important work that marketers and counsel can undertake together in order to make your protection program both thorough and cost-effective.
This year, the International Trademark Association held its annual meeting in Hong Kong, giving the world’s intellectual property lawyers the opportunity to congregate in an important commercial city where branding is all. Once a playground for bargain hunters for, consumer electronics and rapidly cut and stitched men’s suits, Hong Kong has become a destination for consumers of luxury goods. Indeed, I cannot remember seeing another city in which almost any international luxury brand I can think of had more than one boutique. What was particularly interesting this time is that, for various reasons, visitors from the mainland were uncommonly absent, with the result that, in every store in which I had a look, the sales floors were empty of patrons. That may be a temporary problem, but it raises a bigger question: as surely as luxury is about something greater than necessity, it is also about relative inaccessibility; it is an experience over and above the ordinary that is made all the more desirable by its very lack of ubiquity. When luxury is everywhere, can it start to look commonplace? The risk is that new entrants will have a chance to succeed (in no small part due to their newness and limited production) in poaching customers sated by what has become too familiar. That may be healthy for the marketplace but not for you if you have a valuable brand.
There are no perfect formulas, of course, but here is a general reflection that might well apply when protecting a luxury brand and its products: under law, more is better; when preserving the reputation of a luxury brand and its products in a business sense, less may sometimes indeed be more.
Credit: Alan Behr
Photo Credit: Iskciedlam (Creative Commons)
Mon Chapeau
Posted: July 1, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, Menswear, Womenswear | Tags: Central Park, Central Park Conservancy, Vineyard Vines Comments Off on Mon Chapeau
Full disclosure: I love hats. Of course, they are functional. Is the sun in your eyes or has the snowfall become a whiteout? Don’t walk around with your hands on your brow or head—wear a hat. There is no reason that a man or a woman should take care to be stylish from toes to eyebrows and call a halt there. Head north and crown your work with an appropriate chapeau.
Headgear loyalty recently came to mind when my wife, a stylist at a major retailer, again attended the annual “hat luncheon” in the Conservancy Garden in Central Park (officially, the 29th Annual Frederick Law Olmstead Awards Luncheon given by the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy). My wife and her buds looked great in their hats. How hard is it to choose the right hat in an age in which the rules of hat wearing, one as clear as the rules of chess, have become a bit opaque? My wife’s elegant solution: take our preschooler to the store and wear whatever he selects. (It was the yellow one.)
My dilemma with hats is circumference—of my cranium, I mean. I have known only one guy who ever had a hat size bigger than mine—the inimitable Stan Murray, the late father of Shep and Ian Murray, the founders of Vineyard Vines. When Stan put one of my enormous lids onto his head, it looked like a yarmulke.
Just the same, there is one hatter in London and another in Dublin that carry good selections in my size. In Los Angeles, I had a fedora custom-made for me by Baron Hats, which did the same for Indiana Jones (i.e., Harrison Ford, in character). And how will I choose my hats going forward? Luckily, at home, I have a preschooler.
Credit: Alan Behr
Photo Credit: WhatsThatPicture (Creative Commons)
Hats Off, Gents, but Ladies, Do As You Please
Posted: June 12, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, General / Musings, Menswear | Tags: hats, headwear, ladies' fashion, men's fashion, style Comments Off on Hats Off, Gents, but Ladies, Do As You Please
The one time I visited Israel, I quickly adapted to the headwear requirements of three separate faiths by the use of a simple mantra: synagogue, hats on; church, hats off; mosque, hats optional. I enjoy hats and wear them in all seasons. I think they look fantastic on men and women. When a woman wears a hat, whether it is a large bonnet to the “Hat Luncheon” (given annually by the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy) or a mannish fedora to a downtown club, it makes a statement. When a man walks inside wearing his hat, however appropriate it might be outdoors, I can only conclude that he is ill-mannered. Which leads to my meditation of the day: why is it that so many men think that wearing a porkpie hat while cruising through a museum, honing pickup moves at a bar or taking a prospective parents’ tour of an elite private school (which I witnessed) is in good taste?
Guys: sun, snow, rain or just for the joy of it—definitely consider headgear. Inside, unless covering the head for religious reasons, hats off, please.
Credit: Alan Behr
License Agreements: Aim for Fairness — But Words Have Meaning
Posted: June 3, 2014 Filed under: Accessories, Childrenswear, Footwear, Licensing, Menswear, Womenswear | Tags: license agreements, licensees, licensing, licensors, trademarks Comments Off on License Agreements: Aim for Fairness — But Words Have Meaning
It can be said that a licensing arrangement is inherently symbiotic in nature, with the good faith efforts and cooperation of both the licensor and the licensee being necessary for success. The licensor provides its trademark, perhaps some degree of design expertise (particularly in the fashion field), and perhaps also brand customer relations and certain advertising and promotional assistance; and the licensee contributes its expertise in the particular industry covered by the license and possibly its customer relations, its organizational structure and capital resources. The resulting relationship, in a very practical sense, is that of a joint venture or a partnership. Although on one level the negotiation and drafting of a license agreement must be approached as an adversarial process, both parties also should recognize that they will be more likely to view their arrangement ultimately as a success if it strikes a balance, on the one hand, between the licensor’s legitimate concerns for the maintenance of its image and quality standards, for the protection of its trademark and for fair compensation for the rights it has granted and, on the other hand, the licensee’s legitimate desire to exploit the rights granted to it in an economically advantageous manner consistent with industry norms in the applicable market segments and without fear of termination if it is performing in good faith. Ideally, therefore, the parties should approach the negotiation and documentation of the license agreement from the perspective that each of them is looking to make the venture a success for both of them and should recognize and attempt to satisfy the other’s needs.
That said, no matter how much the parties aim for “fairness,” there almost surely will be provisions that a licensor perceives as necessary to protect important interests which a licensee considers unfair, unduly burdensome or overreaching. Before proceeding with an agreement, a licensee must remember that words have meaning and a licensor can seek to force the licensee to conform in its performance to what the agreement says. A licensee cannot rely on its business sense (or gut) to assume that a licensor would “never do that,” even if the licensor assures it that the licensor never has done so before. There also can be no great comfort in the thought that the provision might not be enforceable, since the time and cost involved in adjudicating the issue can be enormous, even if the licensee succeeds. If the agreement requires certain conduct or prohibits certain acts, a licensee should assume that those words control and that, if it ignores them and its licensor’s demands for conformance, it does so at its peril.
Credit: Jonathan R. Tillem
