California Apparel News

Antonio Barragan has dressed The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, and now the designer has created his own collection, a luxury men’s line launched for Fall/Winter ’12 that is the culmination of the designer’s many years of experience working as a buyer and retail store manager.

“Because I had a little bit of a background in design and making things, I started plugging in notes of what I thought was appropriate—things I didn’t see in the market and I thought I could sell,” Barragan said.

Formerly the men’s store manager and domestic men’s buyer at H. Lorenzo, Barragan also was the American buyer for top European retailers, including Luisa via Roma in Florence, Italy, and Society Club in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Barragan moved back to the U.S. after working five years abroad, and his eponymous collection organically took shape. “I had a lot of friends that were stylists back from when I worked in retail,” he said. “So I found my way into making products for tour, for stage and working with some top entertainers.”

He discovered that making items for stage could easily translate into a clothing line. The Antonio Barragan collection includes one-of-a-kind reconstructed vintage pieces and ready-to-wear with a European sensibility.

Barragan scours vintage haunts such as the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., to find items that can be reassembled in a modern way. Popular items include vintage Pendleton plaid shirts that are upgraded with leather sleeves and military jackets that are aged, tailored to a modern silhouette and lined with vintage rock T-shirts. Luxurious trims such as python are added to collars, and functional elements such as large pockets are added to the back of jackets.

For will.i.am’s latest album cover, Barragan added snakeskin sleeves to a varsity jacket and covered it with studs. Ready-to-wear items include drop crop pants and cashmere hoodies that Barragan makes from Italian yarns. A popular baseball hem-length T-shirt is cut and sewn and then acid- and stone-washed to the point where it looks like it has been worn for years.

Other items include vintage blazers, shirts and pants made from denim railroad fabrics such as those carried by the Akai Ito boutique. Barragan works closely with Akai Ito’s owners, Jeremy Friend and Douglas VanLaningham, to develop pieces for their store.

“Without my retailers, I don’t really have a brand,” Barragan said. “So I have to tailor what I make, be really close with [stores], and really listen to them and talk to them about what’s working and not working—and then design into that,” he said.

He also goes to Monte Carlo three or four times a year to work on the sales floor at Society Club and get in touch with the customers who shop there for designer labels such as Lanvin, Saint Laurent and Rick Owens.

“I have to make a product that’s competitive with [those brands]. It’s cool to be able to have a laboratory to be able to work with the clients and see what works and what doesn’t work,” the designer said.

Barragan’s collection retails from $150 for knits tees to $6,000 for jackets with exotic skins and is carried by other high-end stores such as Church boutique in West Hollywood, Calif. For more information, call (323) 301-0439.