Registering a clothing brand
In the Benelux, you register a clothing brand with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) for the classes of the Nice Classification that cover your products, such as class 25 for clothing, footwear and headwear, class 18 for bags and class 14 for jewellery.
The question usually comes up once a label starts to take off, for example because a showroom wants to represent the brand or because bags are joining the clothing line. The name and classes you choose then decide for years what you can stop others from doing. At Liaise we register trade marks for fashion and design labels and also look at what you want to be selling a few years from now.
Want to secure your brand name before your collection reaches the shops? Call 020 675 88 21 or get in touch. Response within one working day.
Which classes a clothing brand or design label needs
A trade mark only covers the goods and services it is registered for, grouped according to the Nice Classification, an international system of 45 classes (Article 2.5bis Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property, BCIP, in Dutch). For a clothing brand, class 25 is the starting point. It covers clothing, footwear and headwear, including belts and sportswear.
Beyond that, it depends on your collection. Bags and other leather goods are in class 18, jewellery and watches in class 14 and perfume and cosmetics in class 3. If you also sell a buckle or button with your logo separately, it belongs in class 26. Something has changed for eyewear, because since the thirteenth edition of the classification, which took effect on 1 January 2026, spectacles and sunglasses are in class 10 rather than class 9.
A design label needs other classes, such as class 20 for furniture, class 11 for lighting and class 24 for fabrics and household linen.
Your own webshop doesn’t require an extra class, because selling your own goods doesn’t count as a service for classification purposes. Class 35 only becomes relevant if you also sell other brands, for example in your own concept store. You then register the trade mark for retail services and specify the goods you deal in (CJEU 7 July 2005, Praktiker, C-418/02).
The class doesn’t decide whether two products are similar for trade mark purposes (Article 2.5bis(7) BCIP). A bag and a jacket are in different classes and can still count as similar goods. So register for what you sell or plan to sell within a few years. Our page on building an IP portfolio explains how to extend a trade mark later and why registering very broadly achieves little.
When a brand name for clothing is too descriptive
BOIP won’t register a trade mark that consists exclusively of an indication of the kind, quality or other characteristics of the goods (Article 2.2bis(1)(c) BCIP). In fashion this often goes wrong with names that describe the material, the fit or the style. A name that only says you sell linen clothing or woollen jumpers won’t get you far in class 25. The same word can be distinctive for another product, so the name of a fabric can work perfectly well as a trade mark for jewellery or lighting.
If you still go for a descriptive name, a figurative mark only protects the design, which means a competitor can often use the name itself in a different typeface.
If years of use have made a name recognisable as your brand, BOIP can still register it, but you’ll have to prove that and a young label rarely can.
House brand, collection name or sub-label: what to register as a trade mark
Besides the name of the label itself, you may have a second line with a name of its own. Each season may bring a collection name too. You register every name you want to protect separately and pay separate fees for each.
That rarely pays off for a collection name that disappears after one season. It is worth it for a name that keeps coming back, such as a permanent line or a bestseller that returns in new colours every year. A sub-label with its own audience and its own stockists belongs on that list too.
Choose the form of the trade mark for each name as well. A word mark protects the name regardless of the typeface you write it in. A figurative mark protects a logo with or without the name in it. If you refresh your logo in a few years, a word mark remains usable. A new figurative mark needs a new application.
Your own name as the trade mark for your fashion label
Many designers name their label after themselves. A personal name can perfectly well be a trade mark (Article 2.1 BCIP). Do think about what happens if you ever sell the label or step away from it. The trade mark then goes with the business, so the buyer may keep using your name for collections you no longer design.
That is what happened to the British bridalwear designer Elizabeth Emanuel. In 1996 she transferred her business to a new company, together with the application for the trade mark Elizabeth Emanuel. When the business and the trade mark were sold on a year later, she went to work for the new owner, but she left after a month. She then challenged the trade mark, arguing that the public would think she was still designing the clothes. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union, such a trade mark is not misleading merely because it bears the name of the original designer (CJEU 30 March 2006, Emanuel, C-259/04). It is the business that holds the trade mark that answers for the quality of the clothing.
If you want to keep designing under your own name when you stop or sell, put that in writing before the trade mark changes hands. You can also hold the trade mark in your own name and grant your business a trade mark licence. Our page on building an IP portfolio explains in whose name your trade mark is best held.
Registering your clothing brand before someone else does
Showing a collection at a trade fair or in a showroom also means showing the name. Someone else can then apply for that name as a trade mark. If that application was made in bad faith, the trade mark can be declared invalid (Article 2.2bis(2) BCIP). You do have to prove the bad faith, in proceedings that take time and money.
The law has a separate rule for agents. If your commercial agent or another representative registers your trade mark in their own name without your consent, you can oppose its use and claim the transfer of the registration (Article 2.20ter BCIP). That won’t work if the agent can justify registering it in their own name. So register your trade mark before you start working with an agent or showroom.
What it costs to register a clothing brand
A clothing brand in class 25 with bags in class 18 and jewellery in class 14 costs €352 in official fees at BOIP for the Benelux. That is €244 for the first class, €27 for the second and €81 for the third. An EU trade mark for the same three classes costs €1,050 at the European office EUIPO, because the second class costs €50 there and each further class €150, for a registration that, as in the Benelux, lasts ten years.
Our search and the filing come on top of that. Our page on trade mark law explains how the procedure works and what else a registration costs.
A lawyer to register your label’s trade mark
We start with an availability search in the trade mark registers and the Dutch Business Register. If your name clashes with an earlier trade mark or a trade name, you’d rather know before your first collection than after it. We then choose the classes and the description of the goods with you and file the application with BOIP or EUIPO. Because we also draft the contracts with workshops, agents and distributors, we include the arrangements about your trade mark in them straight away.
Want to know whether your brand name is free and which classes to register it in? Get in touch or call 020 675 88 21. Response within one working day.
