Toasting Bread
With a tagline as bold as “Truth, Freedom and Bread,” designer Jason Ferro’s new line of premium denim has a lot to live up to.
Rather than focus on flash and sparkle, Ferro’s Los Angeles– based Bread Denim fixates on spare, minimalist denim for men and women. The idea is to move away from mass-produced corporate homogeny, he said.
Bowing July 17-19 at Project New York, the fashion-forward line is the first solo venture for Ferro, who has designed blue jeans for Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, Levi’s, Guess and L.A. Denim Atelier. Now, he says, he wants to do denim his way.
“I want to make a statement with Bread,” Ferro said. His message is eco-conscious and socially aware. Bread’s jeans are made from organic denim from Italy, Turkey and the United States, and produced in Los Angeles to help create jobs in the community.
“We’re not treating the fabrics with potassium,” he said. A full collection of tops that accompanies the line will feature simple graphics that include the word “justice.”
Working with chief executive Sun Choe, art director Clark Bennett and a silent investor, Ferro is launching the Holiday 2006 collection with four silhouettes each for men and women. Men will get a straight leg, two “democratically skinny” slim fits and a trouser inspired by dress pants.
Bread’s key looks for women include two skinny silhouettes and a trouser jean. One supertight skinny jean features a zipper along the inner seam up to mid-thigh so the wearer can customize the fit from a cigarette to a boot cut. The designer said he might introduce a traditional bootleg jean if there is demand for it, but for now, he’s content to focus on more fashion-forward styles. Back pockets are free of embellishment save for derriere-enhancing darts.
The collection, which includes loads of dark and rinsed washes, will also be available in bright, over-dyed hues. “I’m all about over-dyeing and deep, saturated colors,” Ferro said. Look for jeans in punk pink, merlot, and electric teal and yellow.
Shooting for upper-tier specialty stores in the United States and abroad, Bread will retail for $178–$300 for jeans and $79 and up for tops. For more information, call (213) 268-7733.
South Willard: DIY Denim
Retailers Ryan Conder and Danielle Kays, owners of the upscale Los Angeles boutique South Willard, want their clients to have what they want—gimmick-free jeans. Conder should know; he feels the same way. “I don’t want to dress like a peacock,” he said. “I just want clean jeans I can wear every day.”
South Willard debuted its own brand of jeans for men and women in June. “We wanted to make a really straight-forward pair of jeans,” Conder said. He and Kays, who has a background in styling, turned to denim manufacturers in Japan for help in making their jeans—which are so clean they don’t even have a South Willard tag on the backside.
Men can choose from two silhouettes: Straight and Straight &Narrow. Women have a single option, Straight, with a slightly higher waist. All three styles are available in dark indigo.
Made from 10- and 14-oz. Japanese denim, in what the two dub “a fair-labor facility,” South Willard brand jeans retail exclusively in the store for $198. Conder says the shapes and color of the denim will never change.
South Willard’s clients are willing to pay premium prices for the denim despite the lack of name-brand status. The store has sold through its first order of jeans and the retailer-turned-denim designer says he will place a bigger order for the next delivery.
Next on South Willard’s agenda is adding classic men’s corduroy pants and a traditional men’s button-down shirt to its private label. These items and the denim will be available online when South Willard gets its new online store humming later this month.
Bun in the Oven at Paige Premium Denim
Paige Premium Denim designer Paige Adams-Geller doesn’t want expectant mothers to feel left out of the denim craze. For them and their bellies, she is launching Paige Maternity in November.
Available in three styles and four washes, the maternity line is cut from stretch denim. “We use a Lycra blend for the belly panel to accommodate the growing mom,” Adams- Geller said. The maternity line will be available in sizes 26 to 34 at specialty boutiques nationwide, including Pea in the Pod, Liz Lange and Due Maternity.
For new moms not quite ready to hop back into their skinny jeans, Adams-Geller plans to offer a forgiving “4th Trimester” jean that looks like a traditional five-pocket blue jean. The line will wholesale for $80–$86.
Curves Ahead: Sheiki Jeans
Los Angeles–based designer Sheila Dudley doesn’t think slender and curvy are mutually exclusive characteristics, but she had trouble finding denim that fit her slim and womanly figure. In February, Dudley bowed Sheiki Jeans with three styles of curve-loving blue jeans for her kind of woman.
Inspired by Los Angeles’ “hip” women and European fashion, Dudley’s vision was a premium-denim line for celebrities and girls-next-door alike. To that end, stretch denim in 18 fabrications is cut into body-conscious shapes that flatter curvy hips and bottoms.
Each of the three silhouettes—straight leg, boot cut and flared—has a 34-inch inseam and a 7.5-inch rise and measures 14.5 inches around the knee.
“There’s a wide-open market for slim, petite women with figures,” Dudley said. The line, which sells in 30 specialty stores nationwide, is selling well and prompting the designer to grow her line.
For her Spring/Summer collection, Dudley is expanding her line of premium denim to include a skinny silhouette, skirts, capri pants and jackets. Like her previous designs, all of the new silhouettes include Swarovski crystal rivets and buttons and Sheiki’s trademark “S” back-pocket detailing. Corduroy pants based on one of her denim shapes will be offered in chocolate, charcoal, white and black.
Carried at the Stacey Rhoads Sales showroom in the New Mart, Sheiki wholesales for $69–$90. Dudley, who studied business marketing and has no formal design background, said she was “trying to compete with the big people: Frankie B., 7 for all Mankind, True Religion.”
With her premium denim price points and sexy cuts, the designer said she wasn’t targeting teenyboppers or the trendy. “My ideal customer is a girl who isn’t afraid to look sexy and glamorous,” Dudley said.
