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UGLY CLOTHING

By Jim Edwards
Brandweek

When Usher arrived in San Juan last month for his "One Night, One Star" concert, the R&B singer had a lot riding on his shoulders. Viacom planned to use the event to promote its fledgling MTV Puerto Rico studio, and Showtime was to telecast the March 5 concert live with a half-hour pre-show on MTV.

Watching at home in Irvine, Calif., Jonny Adams and Sonny Todorovich were also wishing for a big night. The pair had met Usher at the Billboard Music Awards in December after launching their apparel line, Ugly Clothing, and were hoping the singer would wear one of the shirts they had provided.

Who could blame them? An appearance with Ugly from Usher, seen by millions of TV viewers, could give the relatively unknown brand a stratospheric lift. "That would be lovely, to tell you the truth," Adams said prior to the show.

It didn't happen. The shirt got worn alright-by Usher's bodyguard, who walked behind his employer as they exited the plane.

Close, but no cigar.

Since launching last summer, Ugly has supplied dozens of stars-including Paris and Nicky Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Brandy, Jamie Foxx, Green Day and Rene Russo-with free shirts, hats, undershirts or purses. Several have agreed to pose in the clothes for a photo op, though none has been seen regularly wearing them in public. Yet.

The odds of a star of Usher's magnitude adopting a fashion newbie-especially one with a name like Ugly-are long. Many celebs now sport their own labels, and marketers must compete with hundreds of other aspiring brands that send their handlers weekly piles of free swag.

For those that can score a big media hit, however, the payoff can be enormous. Von Dutch might still be unknown today if Justin Timberlake and Ashton Kutcher had not worn the trucker hats to various award shows and Hollywood parties in 2003. Likewise, there's no telling how few American backsides would be sporting the Blue Cult label if Gwyneth Paltrow had not reportedly bought 20 pairs of the jeans that same year.

Marketers who pin their hopes on celebrity placement realize the strategy is far from an exact science. Celebrities offer a frothy, sexy, gravitas-free marketing platform that makes print ads look tame. But unlike old-fashioned advertising, there are no guarantees: Ugly could fizzle and go unnoticed like so many before it. Everyone remembers the Gap T-shirt that Sharon Stone wore to the Oscars, but can anyone name the designer of the baggy red sweatpants that Britney Spears had on when, in a tabloid moment, she emerged barefoot from that gas station bathroom?

Furthermore, when Spears married Kevin Federline, it was not clear whether outfitting the bridal party in matching Juicy Couture sweatsuits helped the brand. Despite the massive media exposure, the coverage was dismissive. Juicy has, however, benefited from being embraced by Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz and others.

Is Ugly destined for fame or obscurity? Observers aren't sure.

"They've done a great job getting the celebrity connections . . . but getting celebrities to wear them for photo opportunities and getting mainstream America to buy them on a daily basis is a different thing," said Rhonda Harper, a consultant with Atlanta-based Real Truth Marketing & Joy and former vp-marketing at VF Corp. and Wal-Mart. "They have a huge challenge ahead of them."

Added Ugly's former publicist: "They need that one hit, and once they get that, it's done."

Ugly Clothing was born last June, almost as a joke. "I saw this really beautiful woman on TV," Adams said. He turned to his friend Todorovich and said, "What would be really cool is seeing that beautiful woman in a T-shirt that said 'Ugly.'"

Adams, 32, is the creative force behind Ugly's designs and makes all the apparel. He's also the public face of the brand, dubs himself Jonny Ugly and is often seen wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a suit that seems borrowed from a 1940s gangster movie. At 6-foot-5 and well over 250 pounds, he is easily spotted in a crowd. He also plays in a band, Gypsy Nights, at Dennis Rodman's Newport Beach, Calif., nightclub, Josh Slocum's.

Todorovich, 35, handles the business side. Before he became a would-be clothing mogul, Todorovich managed his family's real estate holdings-collecting rent, showing property and processing rental applications. He is the shy half of the team. Even though he can use as much publicity as he can get, he declines to have his photograph taken.

Todorovich thought about the "beautiful woman, ugly T-shirt" notion for a couple of days before concluding, "You know, I think it could really be something." By the end of July, the pair had trademarked the name, gotten suppliers and designed the logo. They went for a simple, clean look revolving around the word "Ugly" in an elongated typeface, followed by a set of ellipses that beg onlookers to ask the wearer what the shirt means.

In August, Adams heard from a friend who works at The Palms in Las Vegas that Paris and Nicky Hilton would be at the hotel for a Phat Farm event. So Adams and Todorovich got in a car and drove to Vegas in hopes of meeting the dissolute hotel heiresses.

While the Hiltons are regarded in the media as tabloid piñatas-Paris was named "Worst Dressed" in 2004 by many publications-the pair are still viewed in fashion circles as marketing dynamite. "She's the hottest thing out there," said Adams.

Adams and Todorovich got within feet of the Hiltons near the Palms' blackjack tables when they were turned away by the sisters' bodyguards, Adams said.

They were noticed, however, by a pr agent who was part of the Hiltons' entourage, Victoria Schweizer of Worldvanity PR, New York. "Jonny Ugly is impossible to overlook, because he's enormous," Schweizer said. "He was wearing a shirt that said 'Ugly' and I said, 'Oh, that is sooo brilliant.'"

Schweizer agreed to get their clothes to the Hiltons, and sure enough, after handing over a couple of gift packages, Adams and Todorovich found themselves sharing a cabana with the sisters behind the VIP rope at the Phat Farm pool party.

As of today, however, neither Hilton has worn the shirt. (Schweizer thinks it might be because the clothing looks too cheap.) The weekend is better remembered for Nicky Hilton marrying her boyfriend, and then divorcing him three months later.

Despite hitting a wall with the Hiltons, Adams and Todorovich were jazzed by the experience and became convinced that celebrity seeding was the way to go. They were aided in this conclusion after they approached a traditional marketing services agency for help.

The agency-which they decline to name-offered them a modest launch plan for $15,000. "We thought, 'Oh, $15,000 isn't that bad. They're going to be running ads for us and helping with promotion," recalled Todorovich. "Then we realized the $15,000 was just for the plan, and everything else was extra!"

Chastened by their brush with grown-up marketing, they decided to retain Schweizer, at about $2,700 a month, to connect them to other celebrities. Within a couple of months, however, Ugly's relationship with Schweizer began to show signs of strain.

At a meeting with Schweizer in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, Adams and Todorovich spotted Michael Lohan, actress Lindsay Lohan's father, and they struck up a conversation in an attempt to engineer a meeting with his daughter. The pair did not appear to know that Lindsay is famously estranged from her dad, Schweizer said. A restraining order currently forbids him from contacting her. "I told them there was bad blood there, but they didn't understand," Schweizer said.

In the end, Michael Lohan was sidelined by legal difficulties before he could meet them at Lindsay's film set, as Schweizer tells it, and Adams and Todorovich approached the star on their own.

Schweizer wanted to give Lohan only a tank top and a long-sleeved shirt, which she believes are Ugly's two hottest items. But Adams and Todorovich had prepared a gift package featuring most of their entire black-and-white line. The two items were thus lost amid a sea of their weaker efforts, like skirts, caps and spaghetti-strap tops, Schweizer said. "If they'd just stuck with the long-sleeved T-shirt she probably would have worn it," she argued. Lohan has yet to be seen in any of the clothing.

Todorovich admits that they were not aware of the extent of the animosity between the Lohans, but said that the incident didn't hurt them because "we may not have met Lindsay without meeting her dad."

Schweizer also had difficulty getting coverage for Ugly in the glossies. "I basically pitched it to magazines like In Touch and Us Weekly and obviously InStyle," she said. "They didn't like the brand because they thought the word was derogatory."

Schweizer and Ugly parted company after about two months. It was "mutual," Todorovich said, giving Schweizer praise for getting an Ugly T-shirt on a Style Network show about the Golden Globes.

The reaction Schweizer got from fashion editors typifies one of the main challenges for the company. Even in this Age of Irony, a certain amount of bravery is required by anyone who wants to label themselves "Ugly." It is an especially difficult proposition for a female celebrity, Schweizer said, because commentary from the tabloids would likely be merciless. Britney Spears in particular has been mocked at length for her T-shirt mottos, which include "MILF in Training." (For the sake of decency, we'll let uninformed readers do a Google search.)

In its brand's ideology, the word Ugly does not mean unattractive. It's an acronym for "U Gotta Live Yo," a catchall credo to describe anyone who has "ever cut in line, drank $300 bottles of champagne in a Jacuzzi or woken up in bed with a good looking stranger," according to UglyClothing.net. "Ugly is a lifestyle that some choose to live and most would like to," the site insists.

Conveying that to customers obviously means a radical rewrite of the accepted definition of "ugly." That is not an impossible task, marketers say, pointing to FCUK, Pervert and Phat Farm as three brands that have managed to turn traditional definitions on their heads.

RTM&J's Harper is bullish on Ugly's chances. The Ugly acronym is "very much an instant messaging, LOL, shorthand language that's very popular right now," she said. "I think that Ugly has done a great job of capturing that current state of mind and it's got some humor to it."

Others aren't so upbeat. Much of their skepticism has to do with the quality of the design, and not the message.

"The clothes themselves are so simplistic. I don't find them very creative," said Mathew Swenson of pr shop Mute Abuse Media, Los Angeles, whose clients include American Apparel and other smaller fashion labels. "It seems like a line that is just designed for marketing."

Andrew Greenberg, who runs a San Francisco consultancy with clients including Levi Strauss, Banana Republic and Old Navy, is even more doubtful. "It's very plain Jane, from the sweatpants to the T-shirts to the hats to the purses," he said.

However, said Greenberg, "there's no question [store] buyers will give this a look . . . It may not be a 30 or 40-year brand but it could go quickly into a fad."

In December, Ugly decided to buy a booth in the celebrity gift room backstage at the Billboard Music Awards, where they would meet Usher. According to Adams, the singer asked for a shirt to be made for him with the U of the logo done in diamonds. The Ugly team also met Green Day, Nelly, Amy Lee of Evanescence, Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child, Paula Abdul and others, snapping them all holding or wearing Ugly merchandise.

Things got surreal when Motley Crüe singer Vince Neil asked Ugly to design the honeymoon lingerie for his Jan. 9 marriage to Lia Gheradini. Weirder still, M.C. Hammer officiated at the ceremony, which the Ugly folks attended. Adams said prior to the assignment he had no experience designing lingerie, "but I love looking at it, so it shouldn't be a problem." The lingerie-and a performance by Adams' band at their wedding reception-formed Ugly's gift to the newlyweds, though the company has no plans to introduce it into their portfolio.

It all helped cement the image of Adams and Todorovich as well-connected party animals who were no strangers to celebrity guest lists. At the very least, the Billboard event gave Ugly an enormous number of photographs of famous people holding their merchandise, all of which are now on the Web site. They also got a small amount of media coverage on Entertainment Tonight, E! Fashion Police, Extra and other programs.

Ugly went in on a second gift room event (which, like the Billboard Awards merch mart, was arranged by Los Angeles-based Backstage Creations) for the CBS show A Home for the Holidays, on which stars touted the benefits of adoption. More celebrities-such as Rene Russo and Jamie Foxx-got more gifts. But the coverage still failed to emerge.

The effort to get Foxx hooked up with Ugly reached almost comic proportions. The company met Foxx three times, Schweizer said, but the actor/comedian still managed to accidentally leave his gifts behind, once at the Four Seasons. "You can't control someone carrying a shirt around for the rest of the night," she said.

They did snag a photo of Foxx with the product, which helped at one store after the celeb won an Oscar. "It's amazing, they have Jamie Foxx holding an Ugly T-shirt and now he's an Academy Award winner," said June Gustilo of Green Sage Boutique in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Backstage CEO Karen Wood also is upbeat about Ugly. "From a strictly corporate sense they don't fit into that world. They're squarely outside the box," she said. "That's appealing because when you're dealing with celebrities, that's attractive to them as well."

Ugly might yet fit into that corporate box. By late March, Adams and Todorovich appeared to have learned that building a brand takes a lot of tedious grunt work in addition to showing up at the right parties and hoping to win the paparazzi lottery.

Back in early December, Adams predicted, "In four months, I expect to be big." Of course, that was before the fallout with Schweizer, before they planned to be at-and then decided to skip-February's Magic apparel trade expo in Las Vegas and before Usher failed to wear his expensive giveaway in front of the cameras.

Now, rather than celebrities, their talk is of stores, distribution, partnering with manufacturers and expanding the line. Currently, the brand sells product through its Web site and six boutiques in Southern California. The basic wifebeater shirt (or "husband hitter," in Ugly parlance) starts at $36, and more expensive items featuring Swarovski crystals come in at $99. They reckon they've moved about 600 items through the boutiques, which include SX in Irvine and Balance on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

Ugly plans a booth at Magic in August, in hopes of scoring a moderate distribution deal. Todorovich said he doesn't want a "big" deal in case it overwhelms the company.

Before that happens, Ugly may face a legal stumbling block.

Seventy miles up the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu resides 57-year-old Bob Purvey. In 1966, Purvey won the U.S. Championship Invitational Nose-Riding Contest at Ventura, a surfing competition in which riders "hang ten"-i.e. ride on the frontmost part of the board-for the longest time possible. Purvey managed to clock 41.5 seconds across six waves, his Web site claims. He did so by using a longboard that had a wider nose, which creates more upward pressure on the front, where the nose rider wants to be. The new design was called the "Ugly."

Today, Purvey runs his own business, The Ugly Clothing Co., selling board shorts and T-shirts. His enterprise has nothing to do with that of Adams and Todorovich. Purvey said he had never heard of Irvine's Ugly Clothing, and claimed he has owned the Ugly trademark since 1966: "I knew we were going to have certain infringements because the term 'ugly' is counter culture. It's meant for those who think unconventionally."

Todorovich, who said he was familiar with Purvey's company, said he is not worried about brand confusion or intellectual property issues. "Our trademark is that Ugly stands for You Gotta Live Yo. [Our] lawyer did a search of companies and nothing came up," he said. "I don't see it being a problem."

Purvey isn't so sure. "I'm going to contact my attorney," he said.

Susan Kohl, APR
Sierra Communications
www.sierracomm.com
(209) 586-5887