article on Von Dutch in local paper...

[133]

today in the Orange County paper there is an article on the legal battle for the rightful owenership of the Von Dutch name. it's an interesting read. here's the link:

http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=90082&section=BUSINESS&subsection=BU SINESS&year=2004&month=4&day=13

[Unkl Ian]

You need to be a member to view that page. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[133]

F@@K. sorry about that. i didn't realize that. my mistake. i'll try to post the article. for those that don't want to read all of it, i'm sorry.

~ Who owns Von Dutch?
Two men are battling over the rights to put the name of artist Von Dutch on apparel that has caught on with celebrities and suburbanites.

By LISA MUÑOZ
The Orange County Register


Von Dutch was brilliant, but not especially nice, say those who knew him.

Still, Von Dutch - a father of 1950s hot-rod subculture and a hard-living bohemian who lived in Buena Park, including some of his last days living in a van at the old Movie World - inspired a clothing company that's splashed his name across the chests and heads of celebrity after celebrity.

Now, Von Dutch Originals is embroiled in a legal fight to determine who owns the rights to the artist's designs, which include his nickname in stylized script and a flying bloodshot eyeball.

On one side is current owner Tonny Sorrenson, who says he has invested $3 million of his own money in Von Dutch and legally took over the company after he was brought in as an investor. On the other, Michael Cassel, the company's original owner, who claims he still owns the rights to the images and that Sorrenson forced him out of the company.

"Cassel is arguing that he has the right to use the company's trademark based on an oral agreement that has no documentation," said Michael Adele, a Costa Mesa attorney for Von Dutch Originals.

Von Dutch Originals, which predicts it will do $100 million in sales this year, alleges that Cassel hired a Korean manufacturer to knock off Von Dutch apparel then sold them to stores in Canada and Britain, even after an arbitration judge ruled that he had no ownership interest in the company.

GETTIN' 'DUTCHED'
"Modern automobiles need some human element on them. Without it they look as though they had been ground out by a mechanical monster - which they have." - Von Dutch in Car Craft Magazine, 1956.
Clients came from as far away as New York to have their cars pin-striped, or "Dutched," but the eccentric Von Dutch's influence was felt beyond cars. Born in 1929, Von Dutch became a symbol of the anti-establishment culture of the 1950s, proudly wearing the T-shirt and jeans uniform of the blue-collar class. He also defined the Southern California car culture with other custom car designers such as Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. In 1992, the Laguna Art Museum hosted a retrospective of his work titled "Kustom Kulture," which included examples of car striping on motorcycles and cars as well as handmade knives and guns.

Cassel called those allegations lies.

"That is total trade libel and slander," he said.

The legal struggle for Von Dutch is a headache for a 5-year-old company still trying to establish its brand to last beyond the current "trucker" hat trend. But the grievance also illustrates the larger problem cheap, foreign-produced knockoffs have become for high-profile brands.

"It's a very, very bad problem," said Darren Pogoda, an attorney for the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition in Washington, D.C. "People are beginning to see that this is a way that they can make money and not get caught."

As foreign production improves, global trade increases and consumers' appetite for accessories shows no signs of waning, the number of counterfeit goods such as purses, clothing and jewelry has exploded over the last ten years, say knockoff experts. The items sell for as little as one-eighth of their authentic versions at county fairs and "purse parties" where shoppers can buy fake Prada or Gucci bags just as their mothers bought Tupperware a generation ago. The U.S. Customs Department and Border Patrol seized more than $30 million in counterfeit accessories and apparel last year, though some anti-knockoff groups say that represents just a fraction of the knockoff market.

In response, brands such as Hermès, Kate Spade and Foothill Ranch's Oakley have become increasingly vigilant about counterfeits. The phony merchandise cuts into their bottom lines and raises retail prices of the real thing.

"Hermès has been fighting knockoffs of its products for many years," said Joseph C. Gioconda, a New York attorney who represents the French leather goods maker whose iconic Birkin bag has been knocked off relentlessly, including a popular line in jelly bean colors. "Von Dutch needs to hire aggressive counsel right from the beginning. If they wait 20 years, with the proliferation of knockoffs out there, they're going to find themselves in a very bad way."

Indeed, Von Dutch's knockoffs headache comes as Sorrenson and the company are trying to build it into a long-lasting label. In January, a judge issued a temporary restraining order to prevent Cassel from selling anything bearing the Von Dutch mark.

Sorrenson has charged ahead by hiring a new designer and opening an appointment-only couture boutique in Los Angeles. Next spring Von Dutch will add an eyewear and watch line.

"It wasn't until Tonny took over that the company really took off," said Adele. "They were able to get a bunch of high-profile young celebrities to wear their apparel."

The brand took off last March when Justin Timberlake wore one of the trucker hats to a Grammy after-party. Soon after, Britney Spears and Fred Durst were spotted wearing the hats.

"That little love triangle really gave us a lot of publicity," said Von Dutch marketing director Caroline Rothwell.

It harder now to find a celebrity not wearing Von Dutch than one who is. The craze has extended to suburbia.

"It's selling extremely well," said Erin Hall, manager of La Diva in Rancho Santa Margarita. "I get two to three phone calls a day asking if we've gotten new shipments of hats or t-shirts."

In 2002, when Cassel ran the company, sales were $6 million, Rothwell said. In 2003, under Sorrenson's leadership, she said sales nearly sextupled to $33 million.

But Cassel says Sorrenson, a Dane, doesn't understand the American-ness of the Von Dutch label.

"This is about Von Dutch and the story of Von Dutch, not about Dennis Rodman and Britney Spears," said Cassel. "What they're doing wrong now is putting too much logos everywhere. That's a joke now."

Von Dutch may seem an unlikely muse for a fashion line - he had an aversion to money, insisting poverty enhanced his artistic and human experience - but Rothwell said Von Dutch's reputation as a hard-living blue-collar bohemian appeals to celebrities and other customers who want to cultivate an edgy image.

Robert Williams, an "old drinking buddy" of Von Dutch's and himself a seminal figure in hot-rod culture, puts it another way: "They're buying their blue-collar lifestyle and paying for it by buying that damn $85 baseball cap."

Williams said Von Dutch, whose family reportedly nicknamed him for being "as stubborn as a Dutchman," would be appalled to see his design plastered across $42 "trucker" hats or $170 jeans.

"I support those people. Von Dutch wouldn't have thought that though," he said. "He would think they're exploiting him, making money off him. He'd go in there with a gun. I'm sure of it."

Born Kenneth Howard, Von Dutch was already a legend by the time they met in the late 1960s.

"The people that didn't know him worshipped him. The people that knew him avoided him like the plague," said Williams. "If you ran across someone who said 'Oh yeah, what a great guy,' then you ran across someone who didn't really know him."

Williams added that Von Dutch was a bigot and politically conservative.

"It's not very common to find a bohemian that's right wing, but he was right wing," he said.

In his lifetime, Von Dutch gained fame as a cult artist who invented freestyle auto pin striping and flames. But he spent his last years working on cars at James Brucker's Movie World of Cars in Buena Park. When the park closed in the early 1980s, Von Dutch moved to Santa Paula to work for Brucker. He died there of liver disease in 1992 at age 63, and a few years later, Cassel said, his daughters sold him the rights to use their father's images.

It was Von Dutch's edge that inspired the label. But as Von Dutch Originals puts its goods in more malls around the country, Rothwell said it will be a challenge to stay edgy and "not get too corporatized."

Some say that's already happened.

"We stopped carrying it. It just got too big. Once places like Nordstrom start carrying it we just drop it. We want to stay more of a small boutique," said Kerri Harlow, manager at Black and Blue in Costa Mesa. "We're just over it. We were over it like a year ago." ~

[burndup]

I'd rather have a Von Drunk shirt any day...

Cassell was they guy who screwed a lotta people over? Paybacks a bitch!

[PEDDRO]

That stuff's even spread over here now.....SAD is all I can say.

Who did the "Von Douche" shirts?

Oh no, I've been sucked into the VD vortex!! {VD:not just a disease!}

[133]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd rather have a Von Drunk shirt any day...

Cassell was they guy who screwed a lotta people over? Paybacks a bitch!

[/ QUOTE ]

from what i understand, Cassel got the rights to VD from his daughters. then Sorrenson is the one that's giving the hats, shirts, etc to every frickin celebrity. Sorrenson is the reason why teenage girls wear it. Cassel is the good guy in my mind.

[Germ]

actually it WAS KIND OF a TEST from the START,............................................ ...(of course nobody pays attention to what I say cause I snorted COKE with PARIS HILTON at a VON DUTCH fashion PARTY)....................


CASSEL made a BET that he COULD turn a LOGO into a MILLION dollar BUSINESS......
This WAS drunk TALK..............
FUNNY MAN TALK..................

So he BOUGHT "VON DUTCH" fair and SQUARE and is LAUGHING all the WAY to the BANK,,,

MASTER P wore the VON DUTCH shirt for a FRIEND,, who CASSEL knew,,,..
and it TOOK OFF........
Then THE KID EDWARD FERLONG wore it... and it went further..........

The SAME girl Who I sent the DEMO tape For A FRIENDS BAND to get them signed....,,,
They are signed now,,,(pretty good for a DUMBASS who KNOWS NOTHING)

well
She also MANAGES that RAP GROUP,,,,,,,,BLACK EYED PEAS(tm) who won a GRAMMY...............

she HELPED get VON DUTCH in HOLLYWOOD by PROMOTING it through FREE TELEVISION.........

I MET CASSEL,,,,,,once.....

I MODELED some VON DUTCH shit for a CATALOG, before they OPENED the STORES........
But we wont TALK much about his MATTERS...
cause I dont know much.,.....

I think he's a GENIUS....
DAVID ARQUETTE comes into PLAY...
WITH VON DUTCH,,,
He sported it when he CAME to see the CAR at BARRIS shop...........

133...????????

He's the GUY who was GOING to BUY your CHEVY in BAKO at MARCH MEETS,,,,,,
But wanted it PAINTED........

the STORY GETS BETTER.........

CASSEL is a RULER,,,,

its all CHEAP SHOTS and he HOSTS the RADDEST PARTIES ever........

GERM...
I LOVE DRAMA.........

BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT

[Hot Rod Ron]

I wounder how my of Dutch(Howard) family gets in royaltes. But not much.

[133]

[ QUOTE ]
I think he's a GENIUS....
DAVID ARQUETTE comes into PLAY...
WITH VON DUTCH,,,
He sported it when he CAME to see the CAR at BARRIS shop...........

133...????????

He's the GUY who was GOING to BUY your CHEVY in BAKO at MARCH MEETS,,,,,,
But wanted it PAINTED........

the STORY GETS BETTER.........

GERM...
I LOVE DRAMA.........

BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry GERM, but i don't quite understand what you mean. care to explain? if not, that's cool.

[jimb0]

sickening.

[JK]

I <3 GERM. I miss GERM. :(

[DrJ]

Ryan,
Can you block FNG's from posting on dead old and usually stupid threads that are older than the FNG's enrolment date?

[drock6570]

yes interesting story to say the least---Germ----Are you still doing coke with Paris?

[Von Franco]

Another cock fuck thread..........................

[Dreddybear]

This thread is four years old. The other one is five....

[Richard D]

yes interesting story to say the least---Germ----Are you still doing coke with Paris?
She's into meth now.

[luciomduran]

Kenneth Howard hates you.

[Kevin Lee]

Ryan,
Can you block FNG's from posting on dead old and usually stupid threads that are older than the FNG's enrolment date?

This ain't a bad idea at all.