WORKER JEANS

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XX: The World's Oldest Known Pair of Levi's 501 Jeans

The Levi's archive garments are something to behold. The oldest known pair of 501's are dubbed "XX" and exude an aura that is difficult to describe. Dated to be from 1879 its denim is full of loom chatter, vertical striations of both shade and yarn character. Careful observation of areas where the indigo did not chip off (behind the buckle and inside the back pocket) reveals how rich and red the cast of the original shade must have been.

Besides the XX several other 501's were on display (1920's, 1937, 1950's). A careful enthusiast can study the differences in details among 501's from different periods. After all the event is to showcase the new Premium 501. The pair I tried on was a dark washed, whisker crunched, redline selvage jean with an updated, slim, low rise, fit. A raw version will apparently be available. Word is Barneys on Madison Avenue in New York already has them. Unlike the vintage 501's of yesteryear these modern jeans do not have workwear details like hidden back pocket rivets and back buckles. But the LVC line (Levi's Vintage Clothing) can give you that fix if it's your cup of tea. It is probably Levi's most researched, well-informed line in terms of understanding its own heritage and history.

Looking at archive pieces with Lynn Downey, Levi's in-house historian, is a unique experience one should not pass on. In fact it should be on every denimhead's list of things to do before you die.

So rare is the XX that it is stored in a safe and is guarded by a sentry when taken on the road. Here is Lynn showing off the oldest surviving pair of 501's as Evan from Meyerson Security stands guard. I was tempted to warn him about the suspicious-looking Blue Man Group peering over their shoulders.

Denim News

Alden Shoes

Alden Dress Lace-up Shoe

Alden Shoe Company has been helping men stay classy since 1884. The company's philosophy about shoes is music to our ears--"reflecting in a quiet, sure way the solid values of the man who wears them". Beautifully crafted and built to last, these shoes are a sure thing.

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MARC JACOBS/Still Life

In an all New York affair, Marc Jacobs sources close to home as they team up with Still Life to create a capsule of highly detailed and timeless hats. Aside from materials, everything from the initial blocking to the finishing trim is made entirely in New York. Some of the styles include the Parri Buntle featuring hand-woven South American straw, the Panama Straw which features a hand-dyed and woven material and the Rice Straw which features a special braid and shape. The hats will drop next week at Marc Jacobs with a suggested retail price of $225.

Hypebeast

Veronique Branquinho Folds

Budding Belgian fashion-design star Veronique Branquinho will close her eleven-year-old label after a steep decline in orders for fall and numerous canceled orders and nonpayments for the spring collection. The label had about 50 wholesale clients and one stand-alone store in Antwerp, where merchandise should go on clearance pretty soon. Branquinho herself has another gig, as the new artistic director of Belgian leather-goods brand Delvaux....

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Heritage and Simplicity

Clarks Cola Desert Boot

Steven Alan LA Sample Sale in Los Feliz

Starts 8am - June 4

Designers Include :
Steven Alan Men,Women and Children's line, Spring and Clifton, Demlee, Rachel Nasvik, Sophmore, Rogan, A- Lawless, Property Of, Loomstate, Sunshine and Shadow, The Jack Rabbit Collection, and Others!

June 4-June 7
Steven Alan Outpost
1937 1/2 Hillhurst Avenue
Los Angeles, CA, 90027
Phone:323-667-9500
Steven Alan

American Apparel

Every once in a while, we like to troll through the "Coming Soon" section of American Apparel to see what those madcap geniuses over there like to think of next (the Chloë Sevigny sweetheart dress rip-off was one of our faves). But now: What's this? "Sheer Luxe Cut-Out Pantyhouse" with the cut outs placed conveniently at your...butt cheeks? Whaaaa? This must be some kind of cruel, weird joke. We're confused. Please tell us we will not be seeing girls parading down Bedford Avenue with their cheeks hanging out in these. But we guess Dior did do it first....

Refinery 29

The Sartorialist

Paul Smith

Paul Smith Project 10: Bag exclusively showcased at the Design Museum

This Spring, Paul Smith launches ‘Project 10: Bag’ - a new and refreshing take on design and individuality in a world full of mass production.

Paul Smith has taken one bag shape, the ‘Flight Bag’ and created 138 individual designs for it - 138 in total, for every Paul Smith shop in Japan. Each shop will stock just one design inviting customers to get something very rare and special.

Designs include everything from vibrant graphic prints to more muted colours and new takes on the signature multi-stripe.

Re-evaluating large-scale manufacture, each design is limited to an edition of 10 – the result is a unique, inspiring and entirely individual collection of bags.

‘Project 10: Bag’ launched exclusively in stores in Japan on 10th April and will be exhibited at The Design Museum from 18th May until 2nd June.

“I wanted to show that creativity is not just driven by money or commerciality and that it can be about a simple idea and effort. Designing 138 prints at the same time for one project was both extremely challenging and rewarding at the same time. I wanted to give and show something interesting and unique to the customer, and hopefully we have achieved that” Paul Smith

“The Project 10: Bag designs are a breath of fresh air. They’re like an encyclopedia of design thinking” Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum

blacker BY steven alan | Spring/Summer 2009

via New Dandyisim

A label that surprisingly gets virtually no attention is Steven Alan’s new venture blacker BY steven alan. Uniform Expiriment has been getting tons of attention lately with the release of their first collection for it’s grown up aesthetic with a youthful edge. blacker BY steven alan in many ways fills the same stylistic space. The collection is a little edgier, a little more serious and less soft and worn-in as his namesake collection, but plays a lot more with the color tones at the darker end of the spectrum. The collection includes everything from tailored jackets, shirting, bottoms, accessories, and even a pair of sneakers. Good luck finding it outside of Japan though.


New Dandyisim

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A Classic Piece of California Surf Culture

Inspired By ACL

In the late 1950s, Nancy and Walter Katin were in the business of making canvas boat covers, and the "multi" billion dollar surf wear industry of the late nineties and beyond was all but unimaginable. Yet one day a young man came into the Katin's shop in Surfside, California, complaining of the difficulty in finding a pair of swim shorts durable enough to stand up to the then-quirky pastime of surfboard riding. Walter focused on a vision with his sewing machine and some of the sturdy boat canvas previously used for boat covers and whipped up the first pair of Kanvas by Katin surf trunks . The surfer was stoked. Word of Nancy and Walter's creation quickly spread up and down the coast, and the Katin's were suddenly in the surf trunk business. The American surf wear industry was born. To make a very long and famous story somewhat short, the popularity of Katin surf trunks grew and grew. By the time the sport of surfing boomed in popularity in the mid-1960s with the Gidget & Beach Boys era, Katins were firmly entrenched as the grooviest surf trunk around. And so they remained, even as other companies came and went. The Katins kept making their high-quality surf trunks, selling them from the Surfside store and through a network of surf shop dealers all over the Western Hemisphere. From the sixties to the seventies, virtually every top surfer wore Katins[1] and all were proud to appear in surf magazine ads for their favorite trunks.

Their loyalty wasn't just because Nancy and Walter made great surf trunks - the Katins loved the surfers who came into their shop, and the surfers loved them. Walter Katin passed on in 1967, and Nancy continued to run the shop and the business in the same manner as before.

In 1976, just as professional surfing was starting to take off, Nancy initiated an annual Pro/Am Team Challenge at the Huntington Beach Pier as a way to let the surfers show their stuff. All the world's best surfers came to compete, but so did all the hot young kids from Any Beach, USA, who were given the chance to surf side-by-side with their heroes. Winning the Katin Team Challenge instantly became one of the surfing world's most prestigious accomplishments.

By the late seventies, the surf industry had begun a decade of explosive growth, but that wasn't important to Nancy. Her involvement with surfing had nothing to do with cashing in on the sport, it was based on her love of "her boys".

In the early eighties, Nancy's health began to decline and expansion of the company was the last thing on anyone's mind. Yet at this time, the popularity of surf wear began to skyrocket, and many other manufacturers were quick to take advantage of the trend, aggressively attacking the market with slick advertising and worldwide promotional blitzes. Katin, however, was content to keep things low-key, continuing to sew up the best surf trunks you could buy in the back room of the Surfside store, selling them up front and through the same loyal network of surf shops.

In 1986 Nancy Katin passed on. Although they were like parents to a generation of surfers, the Katins never had any children of their own, and Nancy left the business to her loyal friend and seamstress, Sato Hughes, who had begun sewing trunks for the Katins back in 1961.

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and here

Swim Trunk Photos: ACL
Text: Wikipedia

FRED PERRY -100 Years

Fred John Perry born in Stockport May 18, 1909. Right handed player, Career record 106 wins - 12 losses, 8 Grand Slam titles.

World No. 1 player for 5 years, four of them consecutive, 1934 through 1938, the first three years as an amateur.

The last Englishman to win the Wimbledon, US Open, French Open and Australian Open Men's Singles titles. Before Perry's first semi-final appearance at Wimbledon in 1931, he was hounded by a practical joker who stole his clothes, organised phantom photoshoots and even started buying a house in Perry's name. He never found out who the culprit was.

Perry had a screen test for the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie Top Hat. That was as close as he got to a Hollywood career.

His father, Samuel Perry, was elected to the British House of Commons as a Labour Party member for Kettering.

Perry never voted in an election, despite his father being a highly regarded MP. He blamed his mother's death on the pressure of electioneering and vowed never to cast a vote.

Perry was married four times in 17 years - to an actress, a model, an alcoholic socialite, and the daughter of a Surrey stockbroker - although he kept the first three quiet in later life. He also dated Marlene Dietrich, teaching her tennis "with rapid kissing between flying balls".

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Raf Simons for Dr. Martens

J.Crew's new Men's Shop

If J.Crew is gunning to become an old boys' club, it's on the right track. The brand is set to open its second NYC men's-only outpost, The Men's Shop, this week, just a stone's throw from its existing Liquor Store shop and with a similar retro, sepia-toned style. The space, formerly a newsstand, doesn't have the broken-in aesthetic of the Liquor Store—yet. The reclaimed knotty-pine fixtures are untreated, encouraging them to weather quickly; in the meantime, the mood is set with vintage decor, from magazines and books (for sale) to pencil sharpeners and staplers (not so much). But atmosphere aside, the clothes are the highlight. The front of the Men's Shop will stock what menswear director Frank Muytjens calls "the always list." In practice? A mix of the Crew menswear, third-party apparel, and exclusive merch from trad-friendly lines. Think outerwear from Mackintosh and Barracuta; footwear from Red Wing, Sperry, Alden, and Colchester, a revived brand of deadstock canvas sneakers. The back is devoted to J.Crew's first-ever Suit Shop. All of the suiting options—many of them previously catalogue-only—are here, with a new, high-end Italian fabric line set to debut later this year. While there won't be a tailor on the premises, we were assured that one would be on call—not on one of the red phones ubiquitous in all of J.Crew's other stores, but, in keeping with the theme, on an antique rotary.

Text: men.style.com
Photos: A Continuous Lean

SIMON MILLER - Made in Downtown Los Angeles

SIMON MILLER JEANS

Steven Alan Interview Part II

Via Fashionista

I don't believe that's your best attempt at drawing a cat. (to see the cat click the Fashionista link)

This is real. This is not me because I hurt my arm. I have something wrong with me in terms of my ability - like my son is seven and he can draw a better cat. So me trying to do this stuff was weird but you find a way to overcome these things. So yeah then people started taking me seriously and then I started doing women's versions of my guy clothes. I thought that was cute. I think it's really cute when girls wear their boyfriends things. I was never really into, and definitely not for the store, those super cleavage-y tops, anything super sexy, those embellished tops. And there were time when that was a big, big thing, you know Sex and the City and times where the whole Mediterranean, super babe look was huge. But we still had a following.

By avoiding trends?

Yeah, I mean it's really easy in retail to be like these are going to be the trends. This huge celebrity is doing a line and we're going to sell it but that's just not us. Unless, of course, it's a really great line regardless of the celebrity attached and then sure.

Can you name one? One that you thought was great enough to sell?

Milkfed was really great at first, Sofia Copolla's line. It was really cute. She was working with Mike Mills and I thought the graphics were really cute. She got it.

If you had to choose between the retail and the design

I would probably design. But I like having stores, I like that direct feedback from the customer. Like, I don't want to be the designer who just has shows and sells to the stores because I need that interaction.

You've never had a show?

I did last year, but I didn't produce it. I was nominated last year for CFDA men's designer of the year, the GQ thing, so they produced my show. And I was actually going to have a show this season, for fall, but the economy didn't seem like the right time to have a show.

So maybe in the future?

A presentation maybe, probably not a proper show. There's something about male models that's weird. About "perfect men" on a runway is weird. Is that sexist maybe?

Yeah last week's Jeffrey Cares was the first time I really saw a bunch of male models on a runway and it was really different.

There's just something stiff and contrived about them. When I was younger I had really curly hair but I never combed it. There are those guys who are really perfect but you can see it in my clothes, I'm just messy.

What were you like in high school?

I went to private, public and art high school. We transferred out of the public into Browning because my brother was dyslexic and I wanted to go to school with him. But htat was an all boys school and it was really intense, I just didn't like it, it was too strict. So then I went to this super liberal high school, co-ed, no uniforms and there was this amazing city kid messiness that's always resonated.

So that influenced the things you like now?

Definitely. The art school was un-zoned so you had people from all over the place and you have to apply.

Ok so let's get back to your day. Breakfast, showroom, then what?

So after the showroom I go over to the store. I check in with the bookkeeper, the planner, the buyer, production, the girl who runs the website. Usually I have ideas of things I want to find for the store so I'll go over my plans with everyone. Then I head over to the design studio, where the corporate offices are and find out what they're going, play with swatches, fabrics, stuff like that.

So that's what you do all day.

I'll have appointments, go to other showrooms. I have to wear all these different hats - figure out what I want to buy for my store each season, what to put in the showroom, what I want to design differently.

And you're also working to sell this stuff to other stores right?

Exactly.

So how big of a role do you play in determining which designers get to be in your showroom?

Big. I'm totally involved in all of it. We had two meetings before this with designers who wanted us to rep them.

How do you decide who's in?

We take on the designers we think will do well. And we try to keep them consistent. We can't carry each and every one in all of our stores all of the time. I mean our stores are pretty small and we represent over twenty designers but we would. Like an artist who has a gallery, to me, if I had a gallery, I'd want to have an artist that if you looked at that painting or sculpture you go, "Oh! Is that so and so?" You just get it because it's personal, without even seeing the signature. And that is really hard, but it's one of the things that we really look for. And you don't see that on Seventh Avenue. Even if lines are very successful, they're geared toward trends and you see the collections every season and you're like, "Is that the same designer?" It's like the wind. So we pick people who we feel change, but change within the context of who they are. And of course they need the ability to produce, ship, they should probably be financed.

Do you help them with that at all?

We don't finance them and we don't introduce them to money people. We will introduce, or we have a good relationship with factors which are like banks, they loan money. I think that if we recommend someone, even if they're not meeting minimums, they'll make an exception if they believe that we believe in the designer. And we'll do press to an extent. Internally, we have a lot of editors coming to us, but we don't really pitch stories. We recommend our designers hire someone else for that.

OK what about in your store. What does it take to hang on Steven Alan racks?

A lot of the same things. And quality. That's a big thing for me. I don't like cheap disposable clothing, you can get that anywhere and it's pretty stylish. But that's not what we're doing. And what we're selling, it's all really different but it's within the same - I mean you might like this but you're friend will like this. You know? There's a group of five girls and they'll all like something but the next group of five girls won't be into it at all.

There is an incredibly cohesive feel. It's one kind of girl who wears everything in here, the showroom, and out there, in the store.

Yeah and her boyfriend.

Let's talk about the mass clothing thing. You're doing lines for both Urban Outfitters and Uniqlo now.

Yeah. I mean we have designers who've done it for Target - Gryson, Loeffler Randall - and Urban Outfitters was someone who I thought, if I was going to do a younger line, they'd get it. And I didn't want to do a seasonal thing. If I'm going to go in and work with the design team and cultivate it to a point where the customer really gets it, I'm really going to do it. And the experience has been great.

How does the design process work? Do you work with them? Do you do your own thing and they approve?

We do all of the designing in house. And then another company does production. We do talk to Urban, it's a collaborative process. We're in touch with the buying team to see what they want, what they need.

And Uniqlo?

They actually approached me a long time ago, when they were just talking about starting collaborations but I was kind of unsure and wanted to feel it out. But ti's been a great experience. I went to Japan and worked with their technical team there and they have tremendous resources and it's such great quality - even though it's so inexpensive.

It's pretty great stuff.

It is.

Ok, let's play favorites.

Cool.

FAVORITE MAGAZINE: Monocle
FAVORITE BOOK: Catcher in the Rye or The Fountainhead
FAVORITE WORD: Max
FAVORITE FOOD: Japanese
FAVORITE SONG: Anything Dylan
FAVORITE PLACE: New York
FAVORITE DRINK: Something citrus-y

WORKERS Lot10 Polka Dot Shirt Long Sleeve