FTW!
Any person wandering this earth during the 2000s will certainly remember Von Dutch. Celebrities from Paris Hilton to Ashton Kutcher wouldn’t be caught dead, outside, without a trucker hat with a “Von Dutch” patch front and center perched upon coiffed hairs. Later, that same “Von Dutch” was plastered to everything from dog sweaters to blowdryers.
The logo was everywhere and then, overnight, it disappeared.
What happened? A new docs-series pokes into the rise and fall of the brand and its three Ed Boswell, Mike Cassel and Bobby Vaughn.
A wild story of betrayal, death, threats from Pablo Escobar’s family and, reading about it suddenly remembered that I spent an afternoon with Bobby Vaughn many years ago right after he founded the brand FTW and sponsored Santa Barbara’s Bobby Martinez.
You will certainly recall the FTW cap riding high during the most iconic moment in professional surfing’s history. FTW sicker on surfboard nose.
Anyhow, Vaughn was a fantastic man, a surfer from Santa Cruz who moved to Venice Beach, got in some trouble, helped Von Dutch rocket to the moon then was brutally cut out of the business. He was living in New York when we chatted, having started a surf shop there, helping at-risk youth and maybe we even chatted in New York, but I don’t know what he’s doing now.
Thankfully there is a new docu-series. I’ll paw through my old paper Stab‘s and find the story while you watch the teaser.
Von Dutch cap Ed Hardy tee… the 1-2 punch
I taught Mike to surf. He always had aspirations, an entrepreneur of unique drive. He told me about Von Dutch at his surf shop Bronze Age. He saw things and all i was looking for was the tide and wind. Word is, life has been hard on him, hope he’s ok.
That Long Beach comp is still relevant 10 years later.
Von Dutch was a lame brand from the start. The entire concept was off from the start. That said, I bet this is an interesting watch. You basically get to watch a bunch of degenerates explain why they should have owned a brand that none of them actually owned. Could be interesting if told properly.
Is this the same thing as Ed Hardy?
I only saw it on expat wankers who “lived in Bali”at the time , never knew what they made , hats by the sound of it?
What I liked about Jerry was he could look back at that whole scene & see how totally fucking ridiculous it was !
The real Von Dutch was a legit original. A heavy hitter low brow artist, before Ed Roth. A legend.
https://kustomrama.com/wiki…
Fully. I always felt bad for ppl tht had Von Dutch tattoos before it all blew up.
Did the kooks that started this clothing company do some kind of illegal copyright infringement? The logo looks identical, I mean that’s theft. Get some BG journalist on this!
Was Von Dutch that tattoo brand that all the bogans wore?
It’s just like NO FEAR, that brand used to sponsor sunny. Popular with kooks and those bloody stickers that were as popular as the Oakley Thermonuclear Protection ones until the god botherers ripped them off and put FEAR GOD on their Toyota camrys.
I think you’re thinking of Ed Hardy.
Oh that was it!
Wasnt sunny stickered by Bad Boy?
Sunny was stickered by everyone. Billabong too.
A bunch of insufferable cunts talking about an insufferable brand that was worn by even more insufferable cunts. Hard pass.
The only Hurley crap I ever wore were 2 pairs of shorts that my Nova Scotian girlfriend bought for me in a bargain bin up there in 2010.
I ‘accidentally’ got paint on them while painting her house so I wouldn’t have to wear them in public.
Haven’t seen her since 2012.
P.S.
I know this article or your comment isn’t about Hurley, but your talk of ‘insufferable cunts’ is appropriate to do with them as much as this other rubbish…
I’d love to see another Bobby Martinez moment on a WSL broadcast. Who would be the most likely to do it?
Just scrolled down the rankings. All a bunch of PR trained robots… not one comes to mind. Need a wild card to stir the pot.
I’m not sure about it in other countries, but I’ve seen the FTW patch on some patched gang members from a few different MC clubs and criminal organisations in NZ since the mid-90’s.
Dunno if this surfie hat bloke would wanna wear his gear around them…
VD is not cool.
There are medical remedies.
FCUK. An even lamer Euro brand from the 2000s. Humans suck.
A pilled-up yesteryear acquaintance (an older bloke in his 40’s at the time) I used to sell weed to in NZ had that FCUK logo on his gear in the mid ’90’s, which he said was his own thing.
I thought it was a bit gay (as he most likely was, going by the music he blared, the nightclubs he frequented and his short bleached hair), so I never asked him anything more about it.
Whether he was talking shit being Ee’d out too much or for real I’ll never know.
P.S.
Haven’t seen him since the late ’90’s when he went to Europe…
I heard he met-up with your ex-Nova Scotian gf around 2012?
FCUK was the lamest.
Chris Cornell donned the aforementioned. Other than him, the rest can f-o!
Happy to report that at no stage was Von Dutch seen in astrograd.
Never seen it wont see it, but I would assume the curse is that the clothes are atrocious. Case Closed.
Ya gonna watch that fat cunt Jonah play Jerry Garcia in the new docco?
https://www.indiewire.com/2…
Inspired casting if you ask me.
Inspired by what?
Dude will pull of being jerry about as well as he surfs
Stop being racist
Stop crying