In fashion it’s rare to create a hit as big as Von Dutch. To repeat that success with a new venture is harder still. Christian Audigier, however, introduced a style signature that became immediately recognizable: a tattoo print overlaid with metallic foil, lettering, and rhinestones. Using the shortened label name Ed Hardy, which he launched in fall 2004, he sold even more T-shirts and trucker caps than he had at Von Dutch. Every year since then, Audigier has added new labels, all built around loud T-shirts. Progressing from dressing personalities to being in business with them, he collaborates with Johnny Hallyday on a line called Smet. Meanwhile, Von Dutch has foundered, discounting its trucker caps from $95 to $17. Audigier gloats. “All my life I have wanted to come to America and be the king of fashion,” he says, pouring digestifs from a $2,700 bottle of cognac into etched crystal glasses. “I am the king of marketing. I am the king of licensing,” he likes to say. “When I go somewhere, anywhere in the world, people know Christian Audigier is there. And if Ralph Lauren walked in no one would know him. Or Marc Jacobs.” Even critics of his gaudy creations admit that Audigier, who grew up poor in the south of France, never mastered English, and has been in trouble with the law, has joined the fashion pantheon—sitting not in Calvin Klein’s corner but instead alongside Pierre Cardin, who licensed his name into ridicule.

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