Chambers: Simplicity With a Twist
Devin Carlson and Matt Goldman just made it cost a lot less for cute boys to look hip. Their new line, Chambers, provides easy-to-wear, affordable collared shirts and sweater standards treated with a stylish twist at half the price of contemporary brands.
The hipster aesthetic of Chambers is similar to the men’s and women’s contemporary line Fremont, which Carlson also owns and designs, but is targeted toward a more mainstream customer and priced at under $100 retail.
“A lot of contemporary lines do diffusion lines, but I wanted to do something different than a diffusion line. I wanted to do something completely different that challenges me creatively, hits a market that I don’t really hit and work with somebody that’s different,” said Carlson, who has been friends with Goldman for several years. Though Carlson designs both labels, Chambers and Fremont are separate businesses.
The tees and plaid shirts may appear plain and simple, but Carlson points out the extra design details, such as a triangle pattern piece on the back yoke of a woven shirt and a waxy finish on a hoodie sweater. Then he pulls out his ace in the pocket, which is that the woven shirts are also completely reversible. A bright yellow plaid shirt switches to a solid charcoal gray. One side of a gingham shirt is squeaky clean; the other has a faded grungy wash, providing two shirts in one.
Goldman, who has worked for Obey clothing and currently runs MFG Productions, a boutique graphics and event-production studio, heads the art department of the label by creating all the T-shirt graphics and curating guest-artist T-shirt series. Goldman explains the idea behind the name of the line: “We can do something that’s really hard aesthetically, and it will work because a chamber can be like a gun or a room. But it could also be soft because it could be a chamber of a heart. We like the fact that the word itself matches what we’re trying to do with the line, which is to be able to be versatile, to do all kinds of different graphic tees, all kinds of different wovens without any sort of limitations.”
For more information, contact the T+A Showroom, located in suite 400 of the 824 Building, at (323) 244-3092 or call Chambers at (323) 540-9430.—Rhea Cortado
