Blonde ambition

While American retailers such as the department store Nordstrom have been reluctant to sell Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, Chinese companies have flocked to embrace the First Daughter.

According to ThePaper.cn, a news portal, more than 20 individuals and dozens of corporates have applied to use the Chinese characters of Ivanka’s name (or Yiwanka) in company registrations. The number of applications totalled 226 as of last month and it is still growing. These companies have a wide spectrum of businesses, from education centres, health products, pastry snacks to sanitary napkins and so on, but all of them believe Ivanka’s name could boost their brand awareness.

Additionally, there are 40 trademark applications to use various Ivanka-derivatives such as “Ivanka Angel”, “Ivanka Manor” and even “Ivanka Trump”.

ThePaper.cn says all these attempts to trademark were submitted after November 2016 when her father was elected US president. As of the time being, all of the applications are being processed.

If Ivanka Trump is still keen to expand her fashion brand in China she may need to act fast. Trump himself had applied for the right to use his own name for property projects in the Middle Kingdom. However, his application was rejected several times since he first made it in 2006 until a favourable ruling finally went his way – after he won the White House race last November.

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