Judge Janice Rogers Brown: No Fan of Designer Jeans
We have a longstanding obsession with Judge Janice Rogers Brown, the diva-licious D.C. circuit judge who frequently surfaces as a Supreme Court contender. We first wrote about her almost four years ago, and we’ve been JRB groupies ever since.
When we attended a lunch talk by her last year, she struck us as quite fashionable. We described her outfit (see blurry photo at right) as “an elegant, impeccably tailored, black wool-knit suit, with gold buttons and trim. The skirt was demure, falling below the knee. We’re going to guess it was a St. John.”
But maybe we overestimated Judge Brown’s sartorial sense. Check out the opening paragraph of her opinion in Aktieselskabet AF v. Fame Jeans Inc. (PDF), an important trademark opinion construing a recent SCOTUS ruling:
BROWN, Circuit Judge: For some reason, a pair of jeans labeled Jack & Jones will sell for the equivalent of $96. Clearly there is magic in the name, and Fame Jeans tried to capture that magic by registering Jack & Jones as a trademark in the United States. Aktieselskabet (Bestseller), which generated the magic by selling Jack & Jones jeans elsewhere in the world, opposed Fame’s trademark application.
Complaining about $96 jeans? “Sounds like something Andy Rooney would say,” quipped Natalie Hormilla, associate editor of ATL’s sister site, Fashionista. In this day and age, hundred-dollar jeans hardly qualify as “magic[al].”
If Judge Brown finds the notion of $100 jeans offensive, Her Honor should steer clear of 18th Amendment — the jeans maker, not what ushered in Prohibition — and sass & bide (an Australian fashion label, not a law firm). Their jeans can retail for as much as $300 a pair, according to Fashionista assistant editor (and resident denim expert) Britt Aboutaleb.
Then again, who needs $300 jeans, when you get to hide the judicial booty underneath a black robe?
Aktieselskabet AF 21. November 2001, v. Fame Jeans Inc. [U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (PDF)]
(16) 
Comments
Comments hidden for your protection. Show them anyway!
FIRST to say i've never paid more than 50 bucks for jeans
It's enough that you bring the ugly Fashionista web design over here Lat, spare me the overly fermented aesthetic opinions of its "editors."
what an unbelievably useless post. to say that this blog is slipping is an understatement to beat all understatements.
speaking of divas...whatever became of that black ausa in cali (?) and Lat's attempts to get her ousted (shrouded in diva worship)?
Pointing out that the ability to command $100 per pair of jeans means a trademark has value is hardly the same as "complaining" about $100 jeans (also, the fact that such jeans are common does not itself make it unreasonable to complain about the price, any more than it's unreasonable to complain about $4/gallon gas). I mean, would you pay $100 for Wal-Mart brand jeans?
I don't read that excerpt as critical of designer jeans. In fact, she is protecting designer jeans. She simply says that for some reason (a reason she need not delve into) the name makes the jeans more valuable and for that reason other jeans companies can't exploit the goodwill that the designer jean company has built on its name.
JRB is a right wing extremist and of course anti-gay and anti-gay civil rights.
Is Lat self-loathing?
Agreed - she is stating facts in the opening paragraph, hardly complaining. This post is completly pointless, other than to serve as a plug for Fashionista.
"The skirt was demure, falling below the knee. We're going to guess it was a St. John."
Lat, seriously, you're gay.
No disputing it, this post is BAD. I'm gonna have to find another way to waste time cuz this site is slipping fast.
$100 (or$300) jeans is absurd. much like the post's pathetic attempt to drive traffic up at the sister site.
2:17 - truer words have never been said..
McCain/JRB 2008!
Diva?? Booty???
Just report the news and stop putting shrouds around it.
That's the same outfit she wore for dinner at the nat'l FedSoc student symposium. Perhaps she isn't as fashionista as I thought...
JRB's comment makes me love her all the more. A diva with uncommon sense, who knows that a fashionable designer dress may be worth the extra money, but expensive jeans are just overpriced trash. JRB for SCOTUS!