California Apparel News

With the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy being observed on Nov. 22, magazines and TV have gone into overdrive with memorials and documentaries on the life and the brutal murder of the 35th president.

But in the fast changing world of fashion, there have been very few nods to the still very popular president. One Los Angeles-area brand, Kennedy Denim Co., launched last year. The label’s name was coined in honor of JFK and his unique sense of cool, said Jason Ahn, the founder of the brand, which has been sold at streetwear stores such as Attic and Karmaloop.com.

Ahn posted a tribute to JFK on his brand’s social media sites on Nov. 1. On its Instagram site kennedydenim, Ahn posted a picture of the president, and Ahn was pleasantly surprised by the reaction. Some of the site's young viewers left emotional messages at the tribute, even though their only connection to JFK may have been that their grandparents voted for him.

JFK T-shirts have long been sold on e-commerce outlets like CafePress. Earlier year, stylish Los Angeles Boutique General Headquarters sold T-shirts bearing the slogan “Let’s Back Jack” with a caricature of JFK on it. General Headquarters Owner Blair Lucio, who keeps a bust of JFK in his shop, said he might repeat the shirt.

In what may be an upset, Kennedy may have seen a defeat in fashion. One of the action sports world’s most popular accessory brands shares the name of Kennedy’s rival Richard Nixon, who became the 37th president eight years after losing the 1960 election to JFK. Nixon Inc. of Encinitas, Calif., makes watches, belts, wallets and other accessories for the skating and surfing set, and has been sold at Nordstrom, American Rag, Zumiez and Buckle.

But representative for Nixon said the name had nothing to do with Richard Nixon. Rather, when co-founders Andy Laats and Chad DiNeena were looking for names for their company in the late 1990s, they liked how the word Nixon fit on products, with an “X” registering prominently in the middle.

Laats and DiNeena sought other opinions on the name with some formal and informal focus groups. A formal focus group of preteens and kids in their early teens at a snowboarding camp at Mt. Hood, Ore., preferred the name Nixon compared to a roster of other names presented to them. Nixon’s Watergate scandal wasn’t even a distant memory for these budding consumers.

“It didn’t resonate with them,” Nixon Senior Marketing Manager Megan Brunner said of the formerly scandal tainted name. “Only one of the kids said ‘I’ve heard my parents talk about Nixon, they don’t seem to like him.’”