Archive index Articles posted online October 16, 1998

Trademark Knocks Pandora Out of Box:

One Clothing Is Born


Los Angeles-based juniors manufacturer Pandora Casuals has a new name and a new outlook. And it owes both to the threat of a legal battle.

Pandora Casuals-now known as One Clothing [http://www.oneclothing.com]-surrendered its old name recently, giving up the label it's been putting on separates, dresses, pants, skirts, tanks and T-shirts for nearly seven years. Ace Ross, the company's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said that the name change came after a long-dormant manufacturer in Manchester, N.H.-which once sold sweaters under the Pandora name-claimed exclusive rights to the moniker.

Ross says the trademark registrant discovered the Los Angeles company through the Pandora Casuals Website and threatened legal action. The trademark holder in New Hampshire could not be reached for comment.

Ross is taking a lemons-to-lemonade approach to losing a name with seven years' worth of brand-building behind it. Ross says he took inspiration from a developmentally disabled child he encountered during a recent stint of
volunteer service in Hawaii, as well as the lyrics of a hit by the rock band U2 to come up with a new name for the company: One Clothing.

"This kid in Hawaii, I asked him where he was from, and he said: 'I'm from America, I'm from Japan, I'm from Mexico, I'm from Russia-we're all one,'" Ross says. "Then I was listening to U2, and I hear their lyrics-'We've got to carry each other'-and it hit me." Ross's feel-good flip of a tough situation will carry over to a new advertising campaign with the tagline: One Heart, One Love, One Life, One Clothing.


Another effort tied to the new brand will be an Internet site at [http://www.areyoutheone.com], due to open this winter. Ross says the company will use the site to search the world for young people deserving of a college scholarship. "We're going to do a search for people who are outstanding in their communities-people who make a difference to their family, friends or school-and offer them a scholarship to the college of their choice," he says, adding that the site will be linked to One Clothing's Website [http://www.oneclothing.com]. "We're going to pick a few kids and give them $5,000 or $10,000."

-Staff report

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