Start here
The Zest

Jewelry, bags, swim and apparel under one name: picking classes for a fashion brand

Written by

A fashion brand that sells jewelry, bags, swimwear and clothing is looking at three goods classes: Class 14 for the jewelry, Class 18 for the bags, and Class 25 for the swim and the apparel together. Class 35 is for retail store services and is a separate decision. You don't have to file all of them at once. You file the classes you're selling in now, or will be within the time an intent-to-use application gives you, and you add the rest later with new applications.

The longer answer covers how the system decides where a product goes, why "coordinated classes" is a search term and not a filing strategy, and how to spend the per-class fees in the right order.

The map for a fashion brand

The USPTO classifies under the Nice Classification, and the current edition is the thirteenth, version 2026. Here is where a fashion brand's products land, using the class headings and explanatory notes:

  • Class 14: "jewellery, precious and semi-precious stones," including "imitation jewellery," plus watches.
  • Class 18: "luggage and carrying bags," with "leather and imitations of leather" and goods made from them. Handbags and totes live here.
  • Class 25: "Clothing, footwear, headwear." Swimwear is clothing, so swim goes in the same class as your tees and dresses.
  • Class 35: retail store services, described as "the bringing together, for the benefit of others, of a variety of goods" so customers can "conveniently view and purchase those goods," including through websites.

Swim doesn't get its own class. From the USPTO's point of view, a bikini and a hoodie are the same kind of good.

A product goes where its purpose goes

The Nice general remarks say "a finished product is in principle classified according to its function or purpose." Not its material. The Class 18 notes say the class does not include "clothing, footwear and headwear of leather for human beings," which belong in Class 25. A leather jacket is Class 25 clothing, not a Class 18 leather good. A leather tote is Class 18 because it's a carrying bag.

A few products hide in classes you wouldn't guess:

  • Hair accessories like barrettes and hair bands are Class 26, under "hair decorations."
  • Sunglasses moved. The 2025 edition of the Nice Classification listed eyeglasses under Class 9. The 2026 edition puts "spectacles, contact lenses and sunglasses" in the Class 10 heading, and the Class 9 notes now point them to Class 10. If you're adding eyewear in 2026, check the current edition before you file.
  • A fragrance line is Class 3, under "perfumes."
  • Pet apparel is Class 18, under "collars, leashes and clothing for animals," not Class 25.

The remarks also cover products with more than one purpose: a multipurpose composite object can be classified in every class that matches one of its functions, but "if a good has a primary purpose it should be classified in this class." Ask what the product is mainly for, and that's usually the class.

What coordinated classes are, and aren't

The USPTO's search system has a field called coordinated classes. The USPTO's training slides describe it as a field that "links classes with goods and/or services often considered related," so a search in one class also pulls results from the classes the USPTO treats as neighbors. The example in the slides is Class 30 pulling in Classes 1, 5, 29 and 31, among others. It's there, in the slides' words, because it's "helpful for filtering searches without overly limiting them."

Here is the part that gets misread. Coordinated classes are a search convenience. They are not a list of classes you need to file in, and they are not the boundary of your rights. The statute says the class system exists "for convenience of Patent and Trademark Office administration" and is "not to limit or extend the applicant's or registrant's rights." Likelihood of confusion turns on whether the goods are related, and the TMEP says the goods "do not have to be identical or even competitive"; they "need only be related in some manner." Jewelry, bags and clothing sold under one fashion label are the textbook example of goods a buyer expects to come from the same source.

That cuts both ways. Your Class 25 registration helps you against a confusingly similar bag brand, and a Class 18 registration someone else already owns can block your Class 25 application, even though the numbers differ. I went into how the USPTO decides that in the article on the same name in different industries. The search has to cover the related classes. The filing only has to cover what you sell.

Why you still file the classes you sell in

If relatedness reaches across classes, why pay for Class 14 at all? Because the registration is for the goods listed in it. The TMEP says "the identification cannot later be expanded." A registration for "clothing, namely, swimwear and t-shirts" covers swimwear and t-shirts; it's an argument about related goods when it comes to your bracelets, not a registration for them. When the jewelry becomes a real line, with its own copycats, you want the registration that names it.

The fees make the order matter. The USPTO's base fee is $350 per class, so 14, 18 and 25 together are $1,050 at filing. If you file on intent to use, each class also costs $150 when you file the Statement of Use, and the maintenance filings are per class too: $325 for the Section 8 declaration and $650 for the ten-year renewal. The full picture is in the article on 2026 USPTO fees.

The order I'd file in

Start with the class that carries the business. For most fashion founders I meet, that's Class 25, because the apparel is what sells and what gets copied. File on use if you're selling, or on intent to use if the launch is months out; the statute requires a "bona fide intention" to use the mark on the goods you list, so don't list jewelry you have no real plan to make.

Add Class 18 or Class 14 when the line is real: samples exist, a launch date is set, or sales have started. Each class needs its own fee and its own specimen. A hang tag on a swimsuit proves nothing about a necklace.

Leave Class 35 for last, and only if the shop is a retail business in its own right rather than the place you sell your own goods. I explained what a class does and doesn't do in the article on trademark classes, and how to choose which name to protect first in the article on which name to trademark first.

One name, several classes, filed as the business earns them.

If you want to talk through how a multi-category fashion brand gets classified, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the attorney (opens in a new tab)

(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Start here