Trademarking a clothing brand
A clothing brand normally needs two classes, not one: class 25 for the garments, footwear and headgear, and class 35 for selling them, whether online or in a shop. Register only class 25 and a competitor can open a store under your name selling somebody else's clothes without infringing your mark.
The two classes, and why both
Class 25 covers the products: clothing, footwear and headgear. It is what stops another label putting your name on a garment.
Class 35 covers retail and online retail services. It is what stops a shop trading under your name. Fashion brands sell as well as make, so the gap between the two is exactly where copycats operate.
If you also sell bags or accessories, class 18 covers leather goods and luggage, and class 14 covers jewellery and watches. Which class is my business in has the wider lookup.
What the trademark actually protects
The name and the logo as a badge of origin, for the goods and services you registered. Not the cut of the garment, not the print on it, not the look of the packaging.
That split matters more in fashion than in most sectors, because the thing being copied is often the design rather than the label.
What protects the design instead
A registered EU design protects the appearance: the shape of a garment, a distinctive pattern, the look of the packaging. It covers all 27 member states for €830 for one design and registers in two to four weeks.
The deadline to watch is the grace period. You have twelve months from first public disclosure to file, and after that your own runway show, lookbook or product page is prior art against you and the design can no longer be registered.
Copyright sits alongside both and protects an original print or graphic automatically, with no registration and no fee, from the moment it is created.
Where to register
Where you sell. An EU trademark covers all 27 member states for €1,530 in one class, and €1,690 for the two classes a clothing brand usually needs.
The UK is separate since 1 January 2021, at €715 for the first class and €155 for each one after, so selling into Britain and the EU means two filings.
Prices exclude VAT and include the office fees.
Check the name before the labels are printed
Fashion names collide constantly, because the vocabulary is small and the classes are crowded. Neither EUIPO nor UKIPO refuses an application because a similar mark exists, so the office will register something a competitor can later attack.
A clearance search across three classes costs €358 in the EU, which is less than one production run of woven labels carrying a name you cannot keep.