MANUFACTURING
Crooks & Castles’ Calvero Plans Rebound
Crooks & Castles cofounder Dennis Calvero is aiming to get back in business.
Calvero announced that Crooks & Castles had dissolved its partnership with Twelve Ounce, a Montreal-headquartered manufacturing and international clothing-distribution company. Also, after one year of selling its goods solely on its e-commerce shop (www.crooksncastles.com), the brand intends to reenter the wholesale market with an unannounced manufacturing partner.
“There’s still going to be a lot of tees and fleece,” Calvero said of the Spring 2018 Crooks & Castles collection. “As far as cut-and-sew goes, it will be from a whole new factory. It will be much better quality from what we experienced in the past.”
A Twelve Ounce spokesperson said that the Canadian company still owns the license for exclusive distribution through the end of 2018, but Calvero contested that statement and said that Crooks’ legal representation recently informed the Montreal company that the partnership had been terminated.
The Canadian company handles back-office business and administrative services for designers. It has sold Crooks & Castles apparel to bricks-and-mortar stores over the past year.
Crooks & Castles started business in the Los Angeles area with hip-hop–inspired streetwear and the slogan “Behind every castle there is a crook.” The company had produced a women’s line of clothing along with a men’s line. It also produced special collaboration capsules with third-party groups such as popular hip-hop performer DJ Mustard and for the 2014 James Brown biopic “Get on Up.”
In 2013, Crooks & Castles opened a 2,500-square-foot flagship at 455 N. Fairfax Ave. Neighbors included other prominent streetwear brands Supreme and The Hundreds. In January 2017 Crooks & Castles moved out of the Fairfax space after its rent was increased, Calvero said. In the future, he hopes to open another physical Crooks & Castles store.
