ARMY PINK

It all started when my long-term boyfriend’s best friend, Heath Ledger, became famous.

My boyfriend and I had been living together for a number of years in a little apartment in Hollywood, but as Heath’s career took off, my boyfriend became increasingly involved in his world. Eventually, he became full-time entourage and moved from our little apartment in Hollywood into Heath’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where he lived for two years.

During that time, it was a house full of Hollywood celebrities and entourage coming through day in and day out. Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Tara Reid, Heather Graham, LeAnn Rimes, and so many others were simply part of everyday life there.

My boyfriend was also constantly traveling with Heath, going on what felt like a world tour to every place you could imagine.

At one point, I remember my boyfriend telling me they were staying home and not going out, only for me to later see on TMZ that they had gone out to a party.

That was when I finally decided I had enough.

I told my boyfriend that if he left town with Heath one more time, I was going to leave him.

Then he left town with Heath anyway.

They flew to Perth, Australia, for a press junket.

By the next week, I was on a plane to New York. I had decided to leave my boyfriend behind and go to New York to start my clothing line instead of staying in Los Angeles. I wanted to get away from him, and honestly, I wanted him to feel what it was like to have me leave after he kept choosing Heath over me. I rented an apartment in Battery Park City, the clothing line was going to be called Tipsy and would focus on high-end party dresses.

I had only been living in my apartment for a few hours when I was woken up and told that a bomb had been dropped on Manhattan.

Our building was one of the closest residential buildings to the World Trade Center, and everyone was taken into the basement. The basement began filling with dust and smoke. People were panicking, and eventually everyone pushed past management and security to get outside.

We ran out into what looked like white dust and snow everywhere.

I was eventually evacuated by ferry to New Jersey, where I watched the towers fall from across the river.

It took about six weeks before I could finally get through the checkpoints and return to my apartment just to retrieve my suitcase, which was still packed.

I also collected some of the debris and kept it in a scrapbook along with photographs I had taken during that time.

My boyfriend was in Perth, Australia, with Heath when it happened.

Heath flew my boyfriend home immediately, and eventually my boyfriend drove from Los Angeles to New York to pick me up because I was too scared to fly. We drove across the country back to Los Angeles.

During that road trip, I changed my mind about what I wanted to create.

We were going into war. Everything was happening at once. And instead of creating Tipsy, I created Army Pink.

I began reworking one-of-a-kind vintage military shirts.

Heath’s house was basically where I lived during that period as well. I certainly wasn't going to leave my boyfriend alone for too long under those circumstances. I was doing my photoshoots for the vintage Army Pink military shirts there and hand-dyeing the one-of-a-kind shirts there as well. I would invite buyers over to see the collection, pretending it was my house so they never knew whose house they were actually in. Sometimes Heath would just be hiding in his bedroom while they were there, and they would look at the new collection and place orders for their stores.

That’s how Army Pink began.

After what had happened, things changed. Once I was back in Los Angeles, I started going with them when my boyfriend traveled with Heath. The next time he had to go out of the country, he took both of us with him.

We flew with him to Rome where he filmed a vampire movie and we spent time in Venice. From that point forward, I got to go too.

After a couple of years creating Army Pink vintage, I started developing real collections.

Army Pink moved into young contemporary clothing and was represented by showrooms that also represented major brands such as Donna Karan. Eventually, Army Pink was in hundreds of boutiques, including MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, and New York-New York.

At a certain point, boutiques began asking me to change my label to a designer label because they felt the Army Pink label did not match the contemporary collections I was creating.

Army Pink had always had its own label, with my tank and marchers on it.

Instead of changing my label to fit the collection, I decided to change the collection to fit the label.

When I did that, Army Pink began receiving huge orders from importers in Japan, including DHC Corporation.

The orders reached thousands per style, and I tried to make the leap into large-scale production in China.

Unfortunately, I lost control of the production. There were large quantities of defective merchandise, and the factory went out of business during production.

Because the merchandise did not pass quality control, I made the decision to refund all of the stores for their purchase orders rather than allow them to receive merchandise that wasn't perfect quality.

That decision put Army Pink out of business, and I lost everything.

I had trademarks for Army Pink in the United States, Canada, Japan, China, and South Korea.

As soon as it crashed, I knew I would relaunch it when the time was right.

In the years that followed, I met my children's father. We got married and had two little kids.

During that period, he had a severe mental breakdown and became extremely unsafe. It wasn't a one-time situation. His behavior continued to become increasingly dangerous and terrifying for me and my children over a period of years.

I had two little children and very few places I could actually go.

I would pack up my children and leave. I couldn't safely stay at home with him stalking me, so we would move from hotel room to hotel room, never knowing where we could stay next. Whenever I tried to leave, I knew he would come looking for me. Leaving wasn't about simply wanting to get away—it was because we were not safe going home.

Eventually, I was sleeping in my Tahoe because I had run out of money and options.

Even though I had friends and family, many people couldn't or wouldn't help me. Some blamed me or thought the situation was my fault. Others were afraid of him and would pretend they weren't home because they didn't want him to follow me there.

One night, while staying in my Tahoe with my two little babies, I reached out to Peace Over Violence because I had nowhere safe to stay.

I had already been going from hotel room to hotel room and had run out of money and options.

When I saw Peace Over Violence on my phone that night, I remembered what Army Pink had always stood for. "In Support Of Peace Worldwide."

I told myself that when this was over, I was going to restart Army Pink with a very specific mission.

Helping people get away from their abuser and making sure they had access to support during that time.

Years passed and when the time was right, I created the Peace Pendant collection to test the mission I had envisioned for Army Pink.

I used my COVID check to create the molds for the necklace and started sharing it on Instagram.

I actually didn't like social media and had never really been involved with it, but I started posting and sent the necklaces to small influencers.

Women and girls around the world shared them, sent me photographs, and connected with the mission.

I was incredibly disorganized and didn't always know what I was doing, but I could see a very strong response to the mission.

That experience showed me that Army Pink could transform again.

The next phase would not simply be another clothing or accessory company.

It would be a nonprofit focused on helping people get to a safe place and have support along the way.

Army Pink is now protected for this next chapter as well.

I currently have a trademark for the Army Pink name in the United States in the nonprofit space, and I also have a separate trademark for the Army Pink logo car that we call LoveBug.

I have always been very on top of trademarks because I already know, from seeing it happen throughout the years, that people will copy things once they become recognizable.

I want to protect Army Pink and its identity as we build this next chapter.

The original Army Pink tank has now been reimagined into the Army Pink car, (LoveBug), with the little peace signs coming out of it.

It carries the history of the brand forward while giving Army Pink a visual identity that fits what it has become today.

And there are still plans for apparel in the future.

Once the awareness and brand are built publicly, we plan to create fundraiser apparel collections.

My board treasurer Cynthia Modders, who is also my partner from the past, has very high-level connections in retail distribution. She has the relationships and experience to eventually help us get Army Pink apparel into significant distribution.

The difference now is that apparel will not be the mission.

It will be a way to fuel the mission.

Once Army Pink has established its public awareness and the brand is built, we can create incredible apparel collections with the proceeds to support survivors.

I can take everything I've ever loved about Army Pink and finally build it with the help of talented people who can make these ideas real.

There is one more story I want to share with you. I honestly don't really talk about it because people might think I'm crazy, but it is part of the history of Army Pink.

The early Army Pink collection was carried by many boutiques in Los Angeles, as I mentioned earlier. One of those boutiques was Fishnet, on La Brea, a street with lots of shops and boutiques, especially at that time.

The owner of Fishnet was also a designer, and Fishnet was her own line of nighties, lingerie, and other clothing.

One day, she decided to do a private-label deal for her lingerie line. She contacted me because the buyers from Victoria's Secret who were working with her on the private-label deal wanted to talk to me. She connected us, and they told me that Victoria's Secret wanted to carry a girls' collection of apparel in their stores.

I had just created my Army Pink PINK collection, which was the collection they had seen at Fishnet.

They requested samples and made a small test order.

I was so excited. I started preparing fabrics and planning the production. Then they contacted me and cancelled the order.

I had sent them a huge box filled with the entire collection. I had printed PINK on every piece.

About a year later, I was walking through a mall when I remember stopping and actually backing up because I saw something in a window display.

It was PINK.

They had removed the word ARMY, kept PINK, and printed it on everything. They were using my colors, my font, and my designs.

They used me to get the samples and had taken what I created and turned it into theirs.

I remember thinking, this is unbelievable!

I know this sounds strange but it's true.

Without Army Pink, the PINK brand wouldn't exist.

That is where it came from.

I will include a photograph of me wearing one of my PINK collection jackets, taken in Las Vegas ages ago. I started creating new things once I saw they'd copied, while they continued to print PINK on everything, taking one old idea of mine and using it again and again until they built a billion-dollar brand with it.

This experience is also one of the reasons trademarks have always been so important to me.

Because if there is one thing I can tell you from my own experience, it is that Army Pink gets copied.

It has happened more than once.

Whatever it is, I have watched it happen over & over again throughout the years.

So now, as I build this next chapter, I am protecting Army Pink more carefully than ever.

This entire story is something I have never really written all in one place before. Now that I read it, oh my goodness, what a long, strange trip it's truly been!

And after all these years, I finally have the chance to put the whole story together and build Army Pink into what I always knew it could become. I do believe it's magical.

This time, the mission comes first.