The Craftsmanship Issue
Wish List: The Best Stuff
How to DIY
Battle-Ready Zombie Tools
Pro Tips: Breaking In Raw Denim
Boozing with the Monk of Malt
Modding a $10K Watch
The Review: TNF FutureLight
#TheMug
Contents The Guide
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Found: Klon Centaur Guitar Pedal
Aftermarket Watch Mods
Jony Ive’s Personal Touch
Wish List
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The world’s most desirable gear, right now
Garage Brands: Humble Beginnings of Iconic Labels
Counterpoint: Craftsmanship Is Not a Lifestyle Prop
Kramer Knives Shokunin Series
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Klipsch Heresy III Speakers
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The Armoury Archives Bespoke Suit
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AnOrdain Model 1 Watch
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2019 Bugatti Chiron
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SnoPlanks Asym Fish Snowboard
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What the Hell Is “Craft Whiskey” Anyway?
The Review: FutureLight by The North Face
Testing: Dog Beds, Cameras Hiking Boots + More
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Guide to Life: How to Break In Raw Denim
Bulk Buy: Humidity Packs
Craig DeMartino Climber
Arc’teryx specializes in technical, high-performance apparel, outerwear and equipment. Design is our way forward. Make it yours.
Arc’teryx Equipment | Vancouver, Canada | arcteryx.com
CONTENTS
Features
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East Fork Breaks the Internet
In Good Hands
Alex Matisse comes from art world royalty (yes, he’s related to that Matisse) but always wanted to make things that were honest and usable. His East Fork pottery line is exactly that — and also an unexpected online sensation.
Handmade goods are time-consuming, labor-intensive and essentially impossible to scale, which is why almost no one makes them anymore. These six artisans produce the intricate (and highly hands-on) exceptions.
124 How to Make a Blade for the End of the World
In Montana, a self-taught crew of swordmakers crafts well designed and battle-ready blades for the zombie apocalpse — whenever that arrives. Until then, the Zombie Tools gang will continue drinking beer and having fun.
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Q+A: The Whisky Bible’s Jim Murray
Photo Essay: Janus Motorcycles
Chris Wright talks with acerbic Brit Jim Murray, one of the most polarizing and powerful voices in the spirits world thanks to his exhaustive, expansive and entirely self-published annual tasting anthology.
On the ground in Goshen, Indiana with the builders behind Janus Motorcycles, makers of small, simple bikes with outsize levels of quality and craftsmanship — and even more personality.
CONTENTS
Intel
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166
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Personally Adaptable Accessories
Won't Fade Away: Craftspeople Keeping Dying Arts Alive
In the Inferno at Michael David Glass
170 Seasonal Style From Studio to Street
182 Build It, Tie It, Make It, Dye It Yourself
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Hacker & Restomodder Talk Cars of Tomorrow
The Parallel Universe Machine
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Eric Yang
FOUNDER, EDITOR IN CHIEF
@hashtagyang | eyang@gearpatrol.com
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ccording to Google, searches for "craftsmanship definition" have increased nearly threefold over the past nine years. My sense (at least from up here, in the armchair-economist cheap seats) is that, now more than ever, people want to know how to identify a well-made thing. Post-recession psychology drove generations of consumers to think about what is truly essential — and that increasingly includes products. My editor’s letter from Issue 10, which focused on innovation, noted that a product’s viability most often comes down to utility for the end user; consumers vote with their wallets. But as those consumers have become savvier and more discerning, the table stakes have moved beyond price: they now incorporate story and process — the question isn't just “how much?” but also, now, “how?” and “why?” The provenance of certain products has always been a selling point — cars and wine come to mind — but it's no longer optional; products today need origin stories. We have become obsessed with “handcrafted” goods, throwing money at them on crowdfunding sites and in the process recalibrating our value calculus to prioritize a good story over actual long-term value. Marketers moved in to supply that demand. The result: the word “craftsmanship” can be loaded, if not downright cliché. The rise of crowdfunding hasn’t helped, specifically in the “here’s what consumers love to hear” template that’s invariably copy-and-pasted across categories. Consumers love hearing about artisanship and craft, so — truthful or not — those ideas are broadly applied in an effort to drive up prices. Likewise, it’s an open secret that many people’s favorite direct-to-consumer companies, whether they make luggage or sunglasses, neither design nor make their core products; instead, they rely on venture capital and the smarts of agencies like
Branch Creative and Pattern Brands to design and develop their wares. That's all fine, as far as those things go, but it does add yet another obfuscating layer between those who make things and those who buy them. That leaves us with a notion of craftsmanship that’s practically post-definition, avoided by especially savvy founders and marketers alike. It’s a word that, as someone who takes the idea of product journalism seriously, leaves me wondering where we stand. I tend to look to younger consumers for guidance. Powered by unprecedented access to information and fueled by anger at the latent effects of the global recession, these consumers, particularly Gen-Y and Gen-Z, are especially perceptive, despite lower net worth and less discretionary cash — a huge voting bloc of two-legged value calculators who put a premium on sustainability and authenticity. (For that reason, they are also the consumers powering the booming second-hand marketplace and the apps and services that sustain it; frugality is no longer shameful — it’s share-worthy.) And how does that affect the practitioner, the craftsperson himself? Thanks to that same empowered consumer I believe that there’s a resurgence of educated appreciation for craftsmanship currently underway. Brands that peddle shoddy wares are increasingly called out and shunned. True artisans can reach larger audiences thanks to e-commerce. And even large name-brand companies are embracing the idea of well-made at scale. All of this, and more, is addressed in Issue 11. Simply put, there’s more well-made stuff available to more people at more price points than ever before in history. So, what does "craftsmanship" mean in 2019? It's the role of the modern consumer to answer that for themselves. We're just here to help.
ORIGINAL OUTSIDER 40 YEARS AGO WE SET THE STANDARD In 1979, we introduced the Danner Light – the world’s first breathable, waterproof boot lined with GORE‑TEX. The utilitarian design quickly became the standard in waterproof footwear. Today, we honor four decades of premium, American craftsmanship with the limited‑edition Danner Light 40th, built for the modern explorer.
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ISSN 2381-4241 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY PRINTED in USA by AMPER LITHO on SUSTAINABLE PAPER INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK 236 5TH AVE, FLOOR 8 NEW YORK, NY 10001 © 2019 GEAR PATROL, LLC
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CHARLES MCFARLANE @charles_mcfarlane Gear Patrol Studios is the creative partnership arm of Gear Patrol. Select advertising in this magazine has been crafted by Gear Patrol Studios on behalf of brands to help tailor their message specifically for Gear Patrol readers. These sections are demarcated with GEAR PATROL STUDIOS. To learn more visit, studios.gearpatrol.com or reach out to us: advertising@gearpatrol.com
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Reconnect.
Montblanc 1858 Geosphere montblanc.com
F
FOUND
Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive text by john zientek photo by chandler bondurant
After playing guitar in clubs around Boston in the 1980s, Bill Finnegan decided to build a kind of guitar pedal that didn’t exist: a neutral, harmonically rich overdrive that didn’t affect the character of the guitar or amp. So with the help of two MIT grads, he spent four and a half years developing a completely original circuit. To protect his work, Finnegan coated the hand-wired board in black epoxy and housed it in a customcast enclosure. In the last weeks of 1994, Finnegan delivered the first batch of Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive guitar pedals to professional players. He quickly developed a following. Over the next decade, he worked up to 70 hours per week, all to build around 8,000 $2 ,0 00 +
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units. The Klon Centaur found its way under the feet of countless professionals (like Jeff Beck and John Mayer), kick-started the boutique-pedal movement and spawned untold clones on its way to becoming one of the world’s most influential and collectible pedals. In 2009, Finnegan discontinued the Centaur, and the $329 pedal doubled in price overnight. Now, on the secondary market, they regularly sell for thousands. If you just want the sound, a successor pedal, the KTR ($269), sounds much the same but is far less expensive thanks to surface-mounted components and an off-the-shelf housing. But if you want a legendary piece of handmade history, there’s no substitute for a Centaur.
Body Modification Aftermarket watch customizers engrave, color, refinish, bling up and otherwise mess with the watch world’s most beloved brands. Are they artists, or vandals? text by zen love photos by chandler bondurant
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Chris Ser knows his work upsets people. “I understand where they’re coming from,” he says, digging his pneumatic engraving tool deep into the metal of a $10,000 watch that most owners would be afraid to scratch. “But Rolexes are not as sacred as some people make them out to be.” Ser and his colleagues at Fin Des Temps, an artist-owned engraving house he founded in 2014, perform their sacrilege in a tiny sixthfloor apartment-turned-studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They are not simply engraving owners’ initials; they are carving intricate, original artwork onto nearly every available metal surface of high-priced luxury watches. Ser, himself heavily tattooed and with gold teeth in his smile, physically resembles his ornate, flashy designs. Fin Des Temps and other engravers exist within a small but growing industry offering aftermarket customization in a variety of forms. At one end of the spectrum, DIY
enthusiasts tweak design elements of their inexpensive Seikos or Casio G-Shocks, swapping in new hands, bezels and even dials. At the other, highly trained craftsmen, like those from Les Artisans de Geneve, will refinish every component of a complicated high-end watch, from the dial to the movement, leaving it practically unrecognizable from its original form. In between you’ll find
companies, such as Bamford Watch Department and MAD Paris, that will give your Rolex Submariner a black PVD coating, a layer of diamonds or other flamboyant features not offered by the brand itself. Underpinning the customizing scene is a desire for something exclusive. “Anyone can buy a Rolex, but a one-of-a-kind piece? Nobody else will have that,” says Justin Counter,
A fully engraved watch, including case and bracelet, can require more than 100 hours of work.
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“I’ve seen people get mad at ’em, like straight hate on ’em. Or people love them. That’s how you know it’s art and not just a watch.”
one of Ser’s colleagues at Fin Des Temps. Rolex is a popular brand for modifications; customers want something personal and unique, but that still retains the prestigious manufacturer’s name and the high-quality watchmaking it represents. “It’s really good for us to be able to put our art on something as solid as the Rolex brand. It’s like a ten-thousand-dollar canvas,” Ser says. But receptions are mixed: “I’ve seen people get mad at ’em, like straight hate on ’em. Or people love them. So they create emotion, and that’s how you know it’s art and not just a watch.” Many watch engravers have backgrounds in gun engraving, a traditional and respected art form that dates back centuries. To see the type of intricate, leafy scrollwork one typically associates with a Purdey sidelock instead decorating a high-end watch is not only visually striking but provides a direct link to historical craftsmanship techniques. But not everyone sees it that way — especially fans of the Rolex brand. There is a seemingly disproportionate amount of emotion attached to the idea of customizing Rolex watches in particular, with much of the criticism coming down to the idea that modifications of any kind devalue what began life as a watchmaking masterpiece. Not only is it the height of hubris to try to improve a Rolex, the thinking goes, but doing so is tantamount to defacing the original art of the watch. On the secondary market, even Rolexes serviced by the
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“You have to let the artist do his thing,” says Chris Ser of Fin Des Temps. The studio’s clients will often provide its engravers with images for inspiration, but most only see the final designs after they’ve been added to a watch.
company itself can lose value compared to “untouched” originals — such is the reverence shown for the Crown logo. (In any case, customizing any watch through a third party voids the manufacturer’s warranty.) As long as art exists, art critics will follow. Many customizing outfits seem to delight in such controversy. To mark the 90th birthday of the Mickey Mouse character, in 2018, Justin Counter at Fin Des Temps produced an irreverent bit of artwork that could be seen as simultaneously blasphemous to Rolex, The Walt Disney Company, and one
of America’s most iconic cartoons: a Rolex Datejust featuring numerous Disney characters melting in the throes of a psychedelic trip, Mickey engraved on the clasp with a gold tab of LSD on his tongue, licking Minnie’s eyeball. Is it art? Like beauty, the answer to that is in the eye of the beholder. But the skill and craftsmanship of many such customized pieces is undeniable. Ser, of Fin Des Temps, sees the two as distinct but interrelated. “Craftsmanship comes after the art,” he says. “The art is first and foremost.”
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GUIDE TO LIFE
Break In Raw Denim Denimheads say you have to wait months or even years before delicately hand washing your precious high-end jeans. These experts say otherwise. text by john zientek i l l u s t r at i o n s b y l i a m o ’ d o n n e l l photos by chandler bondurant
Across the internet, you’ll find articles, forums — hell, entire websites — devoted to the art of denim maintenance. Some connoisseurs insist you need to wait a year before washing jeans if you want Instagram-worthy fades; in the meantime, they suggest, getting the stink out is as easy as throwing them in the freezer. To find out if caring for a simple pair of jeans is really that complicated, we spoke to three of the world’s most respected denim experts: Kiya Babzani, co-owner of Self Edge; Jeremy Smith, co-owner of Standard & Strange; and Okayama Denim owner Merv Sethi. As it turns out, the washing machine is not your enemy.
Jeremy Smith S TA N D A R D & S T R A N G E
Kiya Babzani SELF EDGE
Merv Sethi O K AYA M A D E N I M
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Skip the Waiting Game According to Sethi, it’s true that you have to put in some time before washing. But the difference between two months and 12 months is “marginal,” he says. Babzani agrees, and says fades are mostly the result of actually wearing the jeans. “The way indigo loss occurs on denim is through wear, not through washing,” he says. “Indigo is a large molecule that doesn’t really penetrate cotton fibers, so it’s sitting on top of the cotton fiber. The only way to get it dislodged” — that is, create a fade — “is to actually scratch it off.” As a general rule of thumb, 30 to 60 wears (that’s one to two months with everyday use) will set the kind of creases prized by denimheads. But fastidiously marking a calendar might be overkill. “Being overly precious about denim ruins the experience a bit,” says Jeremy Smith. “You want these garments to be part of your life, and to show it.”
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Don’t Fear the Machine When you do get around to washing your jeans, there’s no need to baby them. Just flip them inside out and throw them in the washing machine on a cold-water cycle. “If you want your denim to age in a natural and vintage fashion,” Babzani says, “then you should treat them how they were treated in the forties and fifties. They were worn regularly, and then washed regularly.” And though hand washing is indeed gentler, your denim doesn’t require it. “From all the clothing you own, including all your t-shirts and everything,” Babzani says, “the one that can withstand a washing machine the most is a pair of jeans.” As for detergent, use something mild, like Woolite
Dark, Tide Natural or Dr. Bronner’s. And don’t succumb to any internet rumors: “Don’t freeze your jeans and don’t spray chemicals on them — just wash when dirty,” Smith says. “Jumping in the ocean is good for Instagram, but then you have to get all that salt out before it tears up the fibers.” One thing the obsessives get right is avoiding the dryer; the heat can cause fabric to shrink, and tumbling will prematurely wear out the fibers. Instead, air dry your jeans after washing by hanging them. “Generally, the pocket bags and the crotch area are the last areas to dry,” Sethi says. “So if those spots are no longer damp, your jeans are probably ready to wear.”
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Wash, Rinse, Repeat (Yes, Repeat) Good news: you don’t have to think too hard from now on — just repeat the wash and dry process as needed. “Dirt kills fibers, so you’re not doing anyone any favors by having stinky, dirty jeans,” Smith says. There’s no correct length to wait between cleanings. Jeans are rugged and hard-wearing by nature, so every month or two might be fine. But climate and lifestyle will both play a role. “If you sit at a desk all day long, you can probably go two or three months without washing your jeans,” Babzani says. “But if you’re in New York City, in the summer, walking around in your jeans, you probably want to wash them a little more often.”
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Darn It! Holes in your jeans shouldn’t mean a trip to the Goodwill pile — or even a patch, for that matter. Many tailors and denim-centric shops now offer darning services, which Sethi says is a superior method of repair. “Rather than adding another piece of denim below or above the hole in patchwork fashion, darning essentially recreates the original fabric using only needle and thread,” Sethi says. And while some major repairs may require patches, Babzani also opts for darning whenever possible because “it’s generally a little more comfortable, because there’s no patch and no interfacing used.” If your jeans have large holes, however, reinforcement may be necessary. But it’s amazing what can be salvaged, according to Smith. “We had a guy hit a deer on his motorcycle in his new denim, and we were able to get it cleaned up pretty well with our repair program,” he says. “I haven’t seen much damage that can’t be fixed.”
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Jack Clawson Studio Brooklyn, NY
Get Faded What the denim pros are breaking in right now.
Stevenson Overall Co. 714 Valencia Jeans
Standard & Strange x Ooe Yofukuten OA02-XX3
“These are one of the only production jeans in the world where the entire thing is single-needle stitched. Three years, two repairs. I love the way they age over time. The denim doesn’t have a massive amount of character when it’s brand new, but as it fades over time it definitely comes through.”
“The 02 cut is like a sixties [Levi’s] 505. Very timeless and wearable with anything. They’re the best jeans-makers alive right now, possibly of all time — doubly so if you’re into vintage [reproductions]. My outgoing pair is five years old and perfectly worn in.”
Big John x Okayama Denim Sample “We switched the weft out for a bamboo-fiber yarn, rather than the usual hundred percent cotton composition. These [new] selvedge jeans are not only insane on the aesthetic and texture front, they’re our first foray into a long-term effort to be a more socially and ecologically conscious company.”
j eremy smith , standard & stran g e kiya babzani , self ed g e
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merv sethi , okayama denim
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Instead of following in his family’s artistic footsteps, a lex m atisse started a small pottery business in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Now, he can’t keep the internet’s favor ite mug in stock — and it has nothing to do with his famous name.
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a few hundred coffee mugs sit on a steel rack in East Fork’s Asheville, North Carolina, factory-studio. The mugs were made the week prior, are priced at $36 each and, in a few minutes time, will be entirely sold out. Alex Matisse takes a call while standing on the delivery ramp at the back of the facility, AirPods jutting from his ears. Facing the flurry of activity inside, his back to the Blue Ridge Mountains, he moseys up and down the ramp, negotiating the purchase of new machinery from China to replace the early twentieth-century equipment he bought less than a year ago. He’s trying, and utterly failing, to keep pace with the internet’s desire for his coffee mugs, which haven’t been available for more than a few hours per week in more than a year. Today, at least, it doesn’t seem to bother him. Matisse slips out of the July sun and through a glass door leading to the front office, an open, high-ceilinged space with a dozen desks and reproduction Eames office chairs tucked in on the right; a leather couch and chair in the center; and a 30-foot wooden table against the back wall. Imagine the ideal office of a direct-to-consumer brand advertising on Instagram and you more or less have it. “Pretty much what you expect, right?” Matisse says with a laugh. “Follow me,” he says, pushing through
a beige door to his left and revealing, with a sudden blast of mechanical noise, a two-story-high, 10,000-square-foot room filled with goggle-clad Ashevillains, clay-crusted machinery and unfinished earthenware. From her office in the front of the building, Connie Matisse, Alex’s wife and the company’s chief creative officer, watches the organized chaos unfold. “The entire production floor is like a choreographed ballet,” she says. Matisse’s habit of selling out of everything almost immediately does not stem from some sort of limited-edition, dropbased product-release business model. He just can’t make as much as East Fork’s voracious fans demand — at least not yet. He would very much like to. But, as he’s said in the past, East Fork is not the Warby Parker of pottery, nor does he want it to be. Because unlike the companies it’s often grouped with — Everlane, Casper, Away and Warby Parker among them — East Fork actually makes the stuff it sells. And if Matisse has it his way, that will never change. Alex, Connie and company CFO John Vigeland admit that labeling East Fork as akin to those flashy, crisply designed labels is an easy leap to make. Connie drew inspiration from those very brands for the company’s marketing, and its website features similarly gorgeous photography and
J u s
“The Mug” ($36) joined by East Fork’s Cake Plate ($16), Side Plate ($28), Dinner Plate ($42) and Everyday Bowl ($34) in three of the brand’s core colorways.
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whimsical self-awareness. The white-hot ceramics manufacturer has a keen eye for the Instagrammable, and its email subject lines are always clever. After three straight years of tripling sales, the company’s growth also mirrors the prototypical modern internet success story. “Ceramics have these peaks and valleys every fifteen years or so,” Matisse says. Vigeland and the Matisses simply caught the most recent spike at the right stage. But it wasn’t without a whole lot of hard work beforehand. In the late Aughts, Matisse dropped out of college to pursue apprenticeships in handthrown, salt-fired stoneware. He settled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and built his own kiln, making limited quantities of high-end ceramics and selling them to a small but “ravenous” (Matisse’s word) group of collectors. He met Connie in 2009 at a farmer’s market, where she was selling cheese, and the two ran the enterprise together until they invited John, a fellow potter, over for a weekend of drinking wine. That’s when foundations of what later became East Fork were first laid. For Matisse, it was a change. He describes the life of a potter as a lonely one, punctuated by small bursts of social activity. And while those days were filled with artistic seclusion, he never considered himself part of the “art world.” Even now, whenever conversations dip into artistic abstraction, Matisse instinctively returns to pottery’s egalitarian purpose. “It’s functional, humble, and people from all walks of life can appreciate and use it,” he says. “Making functional objects, instead of something to be observed. “I love being part of something that extends beyond the individual. I wasn’t in [the art world], I wasn’t being asked to do
something avant-garde or new,” he says. “There is also a very high likelihood that I would not be a very good artist, and I would make silly, bad crap. Which doesn’t sound very fun.” If Matisse sounds wary of calling himself an artist, there’s good reason. “There is a high bar [for art] in the family,” Matisse says, “and I wouldn’t want to come in under it.” Alex Matisse grew up in a household drenched in art in Groton, Massachusetts. His mother was into textiles and castings; his father, a self-described artist-inventor. His sister is a painter and his brother is a photographer. His grandfather, Pierre, imported and displayed Miró, Dubuffet, Le Corbusier, Chagall, Calder, Giacometti and other iconic 20th century European artists’ work in his New York City gallery. Alex is also the step-grandson of readymade-art pioneer Marcel Duchamp. And then there’s his great-grandfather, Henri Matisse — you might have heard of him — whose paradigm-shifting use of color created an artistic legacy to rival that of Picasso. Alex jokes he took to pottery because “no one else in the family had pursued it yet.” But Alex, for his part, was always a potter; he claims he was throwing “fairly seriously” by the seventh grade. His childhood home, a forlorn Baptist church that his parents rejuvenated, acted as the family studio. East Fork formally launched in 2013. Alex, John, or one of a handful of apprentices throw each piece by hand using clay sourced from the surrounding region. The original collection was created using a single wood-fired kiln, with house-made glazes and colors. Starting around two years ago, its masterfully drawn brand
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Led by Amanda Hollomon-Cook, the Small Batch Studio is the only part of the company that continues to make pottery completely by hand. The mugs shown here are custom orders for specialty coffee roaster Counter Culture.
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and distinctive, brown-flecked pottery started to find traction as the company began developing a modest following. In 2017, they made 2,269 mugs on a potter’s wheel, each and every handle pulled by hand. The company added some apprentices in 2018 and pushed that number up to 3,078 mugs — still well below demand. Early adopters took photos of their prize and dubbed it #TheMug. In an effort to keep pace, Matisse halted production to hunt down the vestiges of America’s long-gone ceramics-manufacturing industry: presses, pugmills, kilns and jiggers from the early 1900s. They tried different forming techniques — slip casting, jiggering, RAM pressing — only to face delays; a process expected to take less than three months took nearly a year. They hired non-potter locals, trained them and re-released the Mug as a partially handmade product with a lower price. It sold out again. By February 2019, the coffee mug had a waiting list just shy of 3,000 people, East Fork had a new factory with dozens of new employees, and Matisse & Co. were the owners of the largest collection of early 1900s pottery-making equipment in America. In April, a day before the Mug was re-released yet again (this time made using more machines), Food Network published a 381-word article titled “The Internet’s Favorite Mug is Finally Back In Stock Tomorrow.” The Mug sold out again. Then The New York Times featured it in print. Television networks called about including it in Mother’s Day coverage. Emails begging for more mugs stacked up. “We’d done a very good job marketing the Mug,” Connie says, “and maybe turned up the gas on the marketing of it long before our production team was able to keep up with existing demand. But once that fly wheel starts spinning, it’s really hard to slow it down.” A couple weeks into April, with the sword of viral fame hanging over him, Alex wrote a blog post. In the piece, titled “Big Feelings from the CEO,” he answered the question of why, in his words, they
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Pugmills churn out long tubes of East Fork’s proprietary clay mixture. A wax mold for an East Fork dinner plate. An East Fork employee uses a vertical jigger to press clay into a mug mold.
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Plates, bowls and mugs are inspected for cracks, inconsistencies and sharp edges prior to shipping out. Inventory doesn’t last long.
couldn’t “just fucking make more of them?!” “We have not chosen the easiest route. We are not the Warby Parker of pottery — as much as journalists like to lean on that line. We can’t flip a switch and make more overnight. All we can do is show up every day and try to make more than we did the day before,” he wrote. Today, the Mug starts as an iron-rich clay mixture sourced from Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. It’s loaded into a pugmill that creates a homogenous, well-mixed tube of milk-chocolate-colored clay. The clay is cut into long pieces using a wire cutter, then placed in a mold, pressed, and left to dry for a day. To create the handle, RAM presses slam 30 to 130 tons of pressure on a plaster mold filled with clay; it’s faster than making each handle freeform, though the stamp creates seams on the handle that require hand cleaning before a clay-water mixture called “slip” is used to glue it to the Mug by hand. It dries for another day before its first firing, after which it’s glazed, dipped in wax and left to dry again. This is followed by another firing, quality control, sanding and touchups. Then, finally, it’s ready for sale. “Keeping up with demand would be a twenty-four-seven job. We’re trying to do it during regular working hours,” Matisse says. “It can be fast paced.” Yet Matisse moves around the factory slowly. He takes time to talk shop with the potters tasked with melding handle to mug that day; while he hasn’t thrown anything himself for more than a year, he still goes digging through the tool bin at the station for his preferred brush. He seems more friend than boss. (Matisse comes by that geniality honestly: our two conversations, in Asheville and New York, were both interrupted multiple times by former employees gleefully flagging him down.) “Our company serves our employees and community as much as our customers,” Connie said in a February 2019 interview with Architectural Digest. When preparing
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the space for their current production site, for example, East Fork brass carved a commercial-grade kitchen between the office and factory space. Staff lunches are shared twice a week at a community table in the front room. Alex admits his views on employment may sound näive, but it’s something he has to think about. “Ceramics are inherently labor-intensive. Even when we scale to a point of bringing in more automated lines of production, it will still be very much a team sport to get the pottery across the finish line,” he says. “The challenge is how we continue to ensure that this is a great place to come into work every day — whether you’re in the
shipping department, cleaning the bathrooms or a VP. One of my own metrics of success is how happy and satisfied our whole team is with the work that they are [each] doing as an individual.” East Fork today churns out about 450 mugs a week — roughly six times the volume of years past. With the help of new machinery, they hope to get that number to 600 by year’s end. Inventory is replenished online each Tuesday at noon, but the Mug hasn’t remained in stock for more than a few hours in over a year. Learning to feed such insatiable demand is starting to pay off. This year, for the first time, East Fork should break even financially. The company expects to become profitable in 2020. And while Matisse is
Matisse is quick to point out that, while East Fork has begun importing new, highend manufacturing equipment to bolster its volume capabilities, he has no plans to trim any of the company’s 50-person roster — up from 31 in 2018, 15 in 2017 and eight in 2016.
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pleased with the progress, it’s not progress for progress’s sake that matters most to him. While he’s taken calls from venture capital firms with track records for pushing brands to enormous valuations, Matisse sees VC money as a poison pill — a Faustian bargain that would demand they meet impossible-to-reach sales figures. He’s turned it all down. “I think of success as making a significant impact on the community we’re in,” Matisse says. “Growth isn’t just something you aim for just to grow. You grow toward more and better things — more employment opportunities, more meaningful work, more stability. “Success,” he says, “is being here in twenty-five years.”
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WORK/WEAR Modeled on Brooklyn-based artist Othelo Gervacio and interior designer Niya Bascom, fall’s best layers are comfortable in the studio, on the town and wherever life takes you in between. styled by john zientek p h o t o s b y r ya n p l e t t
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18 East coat, $265; Los Angeles Apparel t-shirt, $24; Cheap Monday jeans, artist’s own; Dr. Martens 101 Gusset boots, $145
Vintage hat, designer’s own; Randt long shirt, $233
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Los Angeles Apparel t-shirt, $24; Cheap Monday jeans, artist’s own facin g pa g e
The Elder Statesman cashmere sweater, $1,665 at Mr Porter; Big Smith overalls, artist’s own
OTHELO GERVACIO 35-year-old Virginia Beach native Othelo Gervacio has been living in New York since 2005, when he began working for tattoo artist Scott Campbell. Though he once worked as an art director for creative agency Alldayeveryday — Gervacio studied communications and art direction at Virginia Commonwealth University — his most recent career, as a multidisciplinary artist, has garnered a lot of attention lately. With subjects ranging from precisely rendered skeletons to pop culture tropes to photorealistic flowers, his work has found a diverse variety of homes, including the Joshua Liner Gallery, in Manhattan; Numbers Edition skateboard decks; and t-shirts from Virgil Abloh’s Off-White label.
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Visvim Dotera coat, $2,335 at Mr Porter; Faherty henley, $68; Kapital Monkey Cisco jeans, $405 at Mr Porter; Arvin Goods Ribbed socks, $32; New Balance 990v5 sneakers, $175; Tiffany 1837 Makers ID chain bracelet, $5,500; Tudor Black Bay chronograph, $6,800; Barton Perreira Thurston sunglasses, $395
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NIYA BASCOM Niya Bascom was born in London but grew up in New York City. He studied photography and film at NYC’s Hunter College, and subsequently worked in the film industry doing set design. Bascom has also held positions in several art departments and worked as a photographer, displaying his work at Danny Simmons’ Rush Arts Gallery and the Polish embassy. In 2008, Bascom co-founded Ishka Designs with interior designer Anishka Clarke. Specializing in restaurants, residences and multi-use retail, the duo has garnered glowing recognition for their eclectic, minimalist aesthetic.
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Vintage hat, designer’s own; Comme des Garçons Shirt long tunic, $343; Monitaly trousers, $374; Greats Court sneakers, $179; Tiffany 1837 Makers cuff, $3,800, 3.1 Phillip Lim 31 Hour bag, $995
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Vintage hat, designer’s own; Randt long shirt, $233; Ashya Anjuna belt bag, $595
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Vintage hat, designer’s own; Yashiki Uminari Knit coat, $527; The Brooklyn Circus tunic, designer’s own; Homme Plissé Issey Miyake trousers, $335; S.W.C. Dellow Canvas sneakers, $89; Tiffany 1837 Makers cuff, $3,800
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