We have been noticing and inviting this trend for years now. As a brand that seeks out retailers that ooze "Americana" ... Freemans Sporting Club, Blackbird, Confederacy, Legion LA, Nomad, Roden Gray, Winn Perry and more - we have noticed, and appreciated the trend. Now validated in an LA Times article.
From the LA Times article
American heritage brands make a comeback
Red
Wing boots, Pendleton plaid shirts, Woolrich buffalo plaid vests,
Filson field bags and Carhartt beanies are among the brands that a new
generation is discovering.
By BOOTH MOORE, Fashion Critic
November 23, 2008
When
Charles Beckman sold his first pair of work boots for $1.75 in the
sleepy town of Red Wing, Minn., in 1905, he probably never imagined
that in 2008, those leather lace-ups would be selling for $235 at
hipster havens Urban Outfitters and Opening Ceremony.
Call it blue-collar chic, sportsman style or retro prep. American
heritage brands are being discovered by a new generation sporting
Pendleton plaid shirts, Woolrich buffalo plaid vests, Filson field bags
and Carhartt beanies.
American work wear has always been an inspiration for designers, most
recently Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs. Young labels such as Adam
Kimmel, Patrik Ervell, Rogues Gallery and Band of Outsiders
incorporated traditional American checks and plaids, field coats and
parkas into their menswear collections.
But the passion for Americana has moved beyond pure inspiration; now
it's about owning the real thing. And although the trend is more
prevalent on the men's side, it's starting to catch on with women, who
are wearing Bass Weejuns, oversized Pendleton shirts and leggings, and
Red Wing boots with skinny jeans.
"It feels like a good time to be patriotic again," says Ricky Swallow,
a sculptor in Highland Park who likes to work in 1940s denim aprons and
tracker boots from the century-old Quoddy Trail Moccasin Co. in Maine.
"There's an irony to it. You go to the Rose Bowl Flea Market, and you
see a lot of fashion designers, people from Ralph Lauren, buying
vintage clothes to make patterns. These traditional brands have
informed fashion for a long time. Now fashion is helping them."
With their tough, dry-finish tin cloth, worsted
wool and traction-tread heels, these clothes are the antithesis of
throwaway cheap chic, which makes them particularly attractive when
dollars are short. They are nostalgic, playing into an insatiable
appetite for all things retro. But they are also a blank canvas for a
number of subcultures, including neo-grunge, preppy, hip-hop and surf
'n' skate, whose common value is authenticity.
Neo-grunge was the starting point for Urban Outfitters when it began
buying into the Americana trend two years ago, trading $200 premium
jeans by Diesel for skinny Levi's and flannel shirts. In the last year
the store has added Filson, Red Wing, Bass, Sperry and Patagonia to the
mix. This summer, it will introduce Reyn Spooner shirts with a younger,
slimmer fit, and possibly some pieces from Pendleton, L.L. Bean and J.
Press.
Dan Leraris, head of menswear buying and design for the chain, admits
that the names are not familiar to most of his core customers, who are
between 18 and 24. "They trust us to educate them. These brands come
from a real place. There are reasons for the way these things are. You
can't hide or refabricate it. It has soul."
"It's the idea that when you buy a Filson tin-cloth jacket, it was
originally intended for the field, with lots of pockets for bullets or
cigarettes," Swallow says. "And now they work for cellphones and iPods."
If you had any doubt that everything's gone global, consider that it's
the Japanese and Europeans who helped reintroduce Americans to heritage
brands in their own backyard. (Not that many of the goods are made in
America anymore, but that's another story.)
"American heritage is a huge part of the Japanese equation. Some of the
best vintage is in Japan, and it's all from America, " says Humberto
Leon, co-owner of the Opening Ceremony stores in New York and Los
Angeles, who first noticed the trend a year ago when he was in Japan
researching clothing lines to include in his current Japanese-themed
store installation.
Leon ended up including Pendleton and Red Wing. The boot maker's
American-made "heritage" styles were available only in Japan until last
year. Now Red Wing also sells the line at Urban Outfitters, Opening
Ceremony, J. Crew, Bergdorf Goodman and Bloomingdale's. Keanu Reeves
and Ludacris have worn the boots, and Johnny Depp's stylist recently
pulled a few pairs.
"It's becoming a smaller and smaller world, and success overseas
is resonating on the home front," says Jenny Tauer, Red Wing's global
marketing manager.
Daiki Suzuki, a New York-based designer who grew up in Japan, started
his work wear-inspired line Engineered Garments in 1999. Two years ago
he was recruited by Woolrich, the Pennsylvania outdoor clothier started
in 1830, to design a younger brand-offshoot, Woolrich Woolen Mills,
with stylistic as well as utilitarian details. A plaid field shirt
jacket is nipped in at the waist and a fishing smock has hunters
embroidered on it.
"I discovered American sportswear through movies like 'The Grapes of
Wrath,' " he wrote in an e-mail. " Henry Fonda in those coveralls,
leather jackets, work boots, wool blazers and newsboy caps made me
think about clothes in a new way. These garments were not worn for
fashion but for necessity, plus the stark contrast of the film, in
black and white, just made him look so epic."
Christophe Loiron had a similar experience growing up in North Africa
and France in the 1970s, watching Brando and McQueen on the big screen.
He opened the vintage store Mister Freedom in L.A. three years ago to
pay homage to utilitarian clothing from the last 150 years by Filson,
Pendleton and other brands.
Loiron can rattle off the features of a 1942 U.S. military shearling
flight jacket (made for only two years), or the derivation of the
peacoat (again, U.S. military). A few style blogs, such as acontinuouslean.com, archivalclothing.blogspot.com and referencelibrary.blogspot.com, are similarly obsessed.
But for Loiron at least, mainstream interest isn't a bad thing. "What
drives this country forward sometimes has erased its past," he says,
with a cigarette between his fingers in a very James Dean-ish stance.
"I like that more people are recognizing quality and heritage of design
and are willing to invest in one good Pendleton shirt instead of having
10 shirts they don't really need."
Of course, Loiron also has his own Mister Freedom line of
vintage-inspired work wear, which he produces out of his store. And in
a sign that things have really come full circle, the Japanese line
Workers replicates American vintage pieces by such long-gone
manufacturers as Crown in Cincinnati, down to the painstaking detail of
crown-embossed buttons and "union made" labels.
Wonder what will happen when those show up in a vintage store.
Jake Davis gives us readers a little op-ed on the times we are living in and sheds some light on the "collective conscience".
