J'N'C Magazine 3/2014 by J'N'C Magazine

JEANSWEAR And CONTEMPORARY FASHION

No 57 / 3-2014

Cool CIties / Los Angeles

Cool Cities Los Angeles Street Styles Retail Talks ANd Service

INterviewS: Barney Waters, Mike Hodis, Jesse Kamm, Marco Götz, Gideon Day, Adriano Goldschmied, Sedef Uncu Aki, Hamit Yenici

English

D 9,50 Euro B/NL/A 10,50 EUro E/P/I 11,50 Euro CH 15,80 CHF

English

EDITORIAL

Sundance Jacket

Literary Walk Eskimo

EDITORIAL

THANK YOU FOR THE YEARS WE ARE CELEBRATING OUR 15TH BIRTHDAY. AND WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO MANY MORE EXCITING YEARS AHEAD.

personal experiences from past years, their greatest successes and their wishes and dreams for the future. Our special thanks go to Rainer Schlatmann, who will be beginning his retirement shortly after this issue is published. Without his conﬁdence, there would be no J’N’C Magazine. And he continued to support us when he took on the role of editor-inchief of ‘Textilmitteilungen’, or TM for short. Now the only question that remains is what will happen next. But wherever the road takes us, we’re sure that things are going to continue in this exciting direction. After all, the fashion industry is still an incredibly dynamic domain – not to mention all the wonderful people who make it what it is. So here’s to many more exciting years together,

Paolo Ventura for WoolrichArt shop on line woolrich.eu

distributed by WP

The first issue was published in the summer of 1999. larity than ever), is down, on the one hand, to our loyal business partners, who have always been by our side. And on the other hand, of course, to our dedicated staff and wonderful network of creatives who are constantly providing us with input and committing themselves to the most varied tasks we set them with verve and vigour. Inspiring interview partners, on-the-ball PR teams, smart marketing managers, well-versed product specialists, passionate CEOs – they have all contributed to the success of J’N’C. Their opinions, background stories and food for thought make every issue unique. Therefore, with this anniversary special we would like to thank all of the above for the exciting time we have shared. From page 60 influential label representatives from the industry will be having their say and filling us in on their

Ilona Marx

ILONA MARX ‘After the issue is before the issue.’ That’s her motto, paraphrasing Sepp Herberger. She can hardly believe how fast time has rushed by since 1999.

READ THE GERMAN VERSION OF THE EDITORIAL ON WWW.JNC-NET.DE

57 — 03/2014

15 years and six months ago Rainer Schlatmann, who at the time was the publisher and editor-inchief of the trade publication Jeans & Casuals, approached me with the idea of setting up our own magazine. How could I say no?! Of course I was absolutely thrilled and dived headlong into the project. The ﬁrst issue was published in the summer of 1999 – and paved the way for many more to come. Eventful and exciting years followed. What a pleasure to see how the magazine developed with every new issue! And with the opportunities grew the wish to keep going one step further and to become more in-depth, more attractive and more international. The fact that today, one and a half decades later, we are still here (and are experiencing more popu-

VINTAGE SLIM

W W W. A L B E R T O - PA N T S . C O M

CONTENT

OVERVIEW

CONTENT

THE MASTERPIECES

STREET STYLES

JESSE KAMM

BARNEY WATERS

LOS ANGELES RETAIL

COOL CITIES LOS ANGELES

DFROST

15 YEARS OF J’N’C

60 104

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FASHION SHOOTS

THE BROKEN ARM

HAMIT YENICI

124 FASHION SHOOTS

ADRIANO GOLDSCHMIED 130

CONTENT

OVERVIEW

CONTENT EDITORIAL CONTENT IMPRINT COLUMN / CONTRIBUTORS BITS & PIECES

3 6 8 10 12

FASHION SHOOTS LEO KRUMBACHER

LET’S PLAY CASUAL

MURIEL LIEBMANN

ANGEL HEART

THE MASTERPIECES

17 GUNNAR TUFTA

IN THE HOOD

COOL CITIES LOS ANGELES

STREET STYLES RETAIL SERVICE TALKS – JESSE KAMM TALKS – MIKE HODIS, THE RISING SUN & CO. TALKS – BARNEY WATERS, K-SWISS & PALLADIUM BOOTS

34 36 48 52 54 56

MARC HUTH

CRAWFORD HIGH

104

MARDEN SMITH

CROSSED PATHS

114

TEXTILES & TRENDS BRANDS & BRAINS 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

BOSSA INTERVIEW SEDEF UNCU AKI

EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS

THOMAS WIRTH, REPLAY MARCO GÖTZ, DRYKORN GIDEON DAY, AIGLE ALEXANDER GRAAH, DR. DENIM ROBERT THEIJSSEN, PME LEGEND MARCO LANOWY, ALBERTO NORBERT LOEW, BENCH PALLE STENBERG, NUDIE JEANS

60 61 62 64 66 68 70 72

120

ÇALIK DENIM INTERVIEW HAMIT YENICI

EAST GOES WEST

124

WHERE TO FIND US

128

TEN QUESTIONS FOR RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE

ADRIANO GOLDSCHMIED

130

THE BROKEN ARM, PARIS

MARAIS, MON AMOUR

ATELIER AKEEF, BERLIN

SUSTAINABLY SOURCED STYLE

DFROST, STUTTGART

AND LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION

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PUBLISHER B+B MEDIA COMPANY GmbH Hildebrandtstr. 24 d 40215 Düsseldorf Telefon +49 (0)211 8303 0 Telefax +49 (0)211 8303 200 info@jnc-net.de, www.jnc-net.de

FREELANCE CONTRIBUTORS Gerlind Hector /gh, Cheryll Mühlen /cm, Magdalena Piotrowski

IMAGE EDITING Jean Pascal Zahn COPY EDITOR Susanna Higham-Miska, Stefanie von der Heide, Eva Westhoff, Fredericke Winkler

MANAGING DIRECTOR André Weijde

PHOTOGRAPHY Adrian Gaut, Claudia Goedke, Marc Huth, Leo Krumbacher, Muriel Liebmann, Eduardo Miera, Rainer Rudolf, Marden Smith, Gunnar Tufta, Bernd Wichmann

PUBLISHING MANAGEMENT Michael Rieck, Kathrin Wimber

ILLUSTRATION Frauke Berg

PRINT Kössinger Druck, Schierling

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ilona Marx /im

TRANSLATION Galina Green, Paula Hedley

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Pierre D’Aveta

DESIGN & LAYOUT Martin Steinigen, chewing the sun, www.chewingthesun.com

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Pierre D’Aveta Telefon +49 (0)211 8303 151 p.daveta@bb-mediacompany.com

HEAD OF PRODUCTION Stefan Mugrauer

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Quality Wear for the Next Era

COLUMN

TEXT GERLIND HECTOR ILLUSTRATION FRAUKE BERG

Some of our

CONTRIBUTORS

MARC HUTH Marc is generally pretty modest but he’s also partial to the odd drum roll every now and again. But as the drummer of a punk rock band that’s perfectly ﬁne. And it also gives him a whole load of backstage credibility as a photographer. We sought out his photography skills for this issue, knowing full well that he is regarded as a punk in the business – in the professional sense of course. After a stint in New York the Cologne native now lives in Berlin, where life is good. In addition to his love of good whisky he enjoys pizza, pizza and pizza, his all-time favourite food. The other loves of his life are: music, fashion and the Maldives. In exactly that order.

COLUMN

Cement, mineral oil, tyre sealant, glue – you’d think such substances would all end up in the special waste disposal unit. But not when it comes to women wanting to boost their posteriors. This is actually the cocktail of ingredients some ladies in the US have had injected into their rear ends in the hope they will end up with a booty like Coco Austin. (Spoiler: they don’t. More often than not, such buttock-boosting procedures are botched, resulting in life-threatening complications). The wife of famous rapper Ice-T isn’t doing anything to suppress this bottom mania. Her gargantuan posterior, which would put any orthopaedic ball to shame, has a media presence rivalled only perhaps by Pippa Middleton’s derriere. And the virus is spreading! Kim Kardashian’s entourage even includes her own bottom-sitter, who spends all day doing nothing but ensuring that Kim’s backside is always camera-ready. How on earth did it come to this? What some of you may not know: the trend for a bootylicious behind comes from Brazil, where it’s been ‘in’ for years to cover it with as little material and as much tanning oil as possible. Every year in Rio de Janeiro they even hold a ‘Miss Bumbum’ contest. I will spare you the details. Years ago when it came to showing off your buns we had nothing but a tired smile for the South Americans of Sugarloaf Mountain; we were convinced we had left this primitive stage of evolution behind, in favour of more culture. But have our animal instincts caught up with us? The fact is that Brazil is top of the charts when it comes to places to be: the World Cup, the economic boom and

of course those hot girls from Ipanema and their badonkadonk bottoms. And now we’re even being treated to a ‘Carnaval do Brasil’ at the Bread & Butter, where bottom-shaking will no doubt be part of the deal. We’re looking forward to seeing how this trend will be interpreted in Germany. Of course we can only surmise that it will be hot, hot, hot. At Berlin Tempelhof the caipirinhas will be ﬂowing and Copacabana charm and baile and bossa nova music will be in the air. Founder and director of Bread & Butter, Karl-Heinz Müller, is brimming with ideas, especially as he has been a huge fan of Brazil since enjoying a longer stay over there. Will we be doing the limbo dance to gain entrance to the B&B gates? Will there be drug dealers hanging out outside the outdoor trade fair booths decked out in the authentic favela look? Will they be handing out bottomshaping knickers à la Pippa Middleton? Or will we be dancing the Samba with feather boas? These are certainly ridiculous clichés. At the very least, a Miss Bumbum Berlin contest would be a lot of fun though. And the perfect thing for the German press to get really hot and bothered about, before the backside hype disappears back to where it belongs: where the sun don’t shine! After all, the next controversial trend is just waiting around the corner and is virtually impossible to combine with the desire for an oversized gluteus maximus à la Coco. The ‘thigh gap’ is next on the horizon for this summer, and yes, Gisele Bündchen has one already!

SUSANNA HIGHAM-MISKA It’s deﬁnitely true love between Susanna and her trusty steed Rosanna. Only for her beloved Oldenburg mare will our copy editor take off her 12-centimetre high heels, in which she effortlessly sprints around the ofﬁce every day. Other than that, Susanna is a big fan of British style, she loves British humour and the typical British afternoon tea with cream cakes galore. Which, incidentally, you can’t tell by looking at her. With her love for the island, it’s no wonder she has a British husband. We are delighted about the fact that, in addition to Old and Middle English, Susanna is also clued up on modern Anglo-Saxon slang. Which makes her an indispensable member of our team.

SHANDI ALEXANDER Whether salsa, ﬂamenco or Caribbean dance – Shandi knows the moves. And she is constantly on the move herself. The New York stylist, who lived in Japan for four years, is always jetting around the world, either to take a new dance class or for a new styling job. And her career is certainly colourful: she has styled everyone from politicians like Gorbachev to crazy girls for top fashion mags. For Shandi it’s all in a day’s work. What inspires her? The nonchalance of Jane Birkin, the sexiness of Diana Ross and most of all the look of her mum and dad. “I have the most stylish parents ever!” she says. Which explains her natural talent when it comes to picking out cool outﬁts.

* Willkommen in Brasilien ** Brasilianisches Territorium

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Booty -licious!

HAVAIANAS-STORE.COM 10

BITS & PIECES

BACK TO THE NINETIES, BABY!

MAVI:

Grown-up, urban lady meets funloving boho girl: Mavi is all about the contrasts this coming spring. But the main focus of the S/S 2015 collection by the Turkish denim label is the nineties style. The basic style is still skinny, but rounded off by casual boyfriend and high-waisted girlfriend jeans. And heritage denims and clean slim ﬁts are setting the tone for the men. /cm EU.MAVI.COM

ACE & TATE:

SMART VISION

Stylish spectacles don’t necessarily have to be luxury items. This is being proven by Dutch eyewear manufacturer Ace & Tate with their highly modern, yet timeless models at affordable prices. They are not only providing more variety on the noses of their clientele, but have also promised to donate a percentage of the proﬁt of every pair purchased to a charity that supplies people in developing countries with glasses. Ace & Tate eyewear has ﬁnally been available for sale in Germany since May. /cm

CARHARTT WORK IN PROGRESS:

VALUES & FUTURE

WWW.ACEANDTATE.COM

TRADITION VS. TREND

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FIL NOIR:

Italian shirt makers Fil Noir steer clear of ﬂeeting fashion trends. Their credo is quality workmanship. So the S/S 2015 collection features only high-quality fabrics processed by hand using tried-and-tested methods. The highlights of the 45-piece collection are almost-forgotten vintage classics like the shirt with plastron, also known as a bib, or, if you want to get biblical, patricide collar. /cm

The collision of workwear and the ‘Work In Progress’ attitude culminates in the Carhartt WIP S/S 2015 collection which is presenting their newly launched classics. Quality, durability and comfort – the core values of the US streetwear brand are what distinguish traditional pieces like the Lincoln Double Knee Pant, the Fynn Jacket and the Detroit Jacket. And the new Light Lux Material gives them an even softer feel. But the new season will also be seeing the arrival of previously unseen styles and designs such as the Detroit Jacket in suede or tropical prints. Hello summer! /cm

THE ICONIC BOMBER MA-1 SCHOTT NYC X AMERICAN COLLEGE

WWW.FIL-NOIR.COM WWW.CARHARTT-WIP.COM

www.schott-bros.com | Schott NYC: Premium, Hall 1, Stand G05 | American College: BBB, Urban Base, Stand 61.1

BITS & PIECES

ADENIM FEAT. PARKA:

LAIDBACK LONDON:

RAGS ’N’ RECORDS

FAIR FOOTPRINTS

Name: The Tourist – Pre-Spring 2015. Nationality: The world. Travelling from: Winter. Travelling to: Summer. This is the brief summary of the pre-spring 2015 collection by Danish label By Malene Birger. The style corresponding to this collection motto consists of wintry items paired with light and ﬂowing elements that express the anticipation of summer: light colours meet graphic prints and architectonic structures can be found translated onto silk, linen, cotton, mohair or cashmere. /cm

Although they can usually be found in the recording studio, there’s also a chance you might spot them between rolls of fabric and sewing machines as well now. We’re talking about the Cologne indie rock band Parka, who have designed a limited collection of 100 pieces together with the jeans label ADenim from Mönchengladbach for A/W 2014. To match the style of the musicians, the jeans collection has a grunge feel to it and is elaborately ﬁnished by hand using old Parka fabrics. Doubly labelled and presented in a specially designed packaging, the unique items are available now, exclusively from the ADenim online shop. So get surﬁng and secure your pair now! /cm

At Laidback London every shoe has a story. The fair trade label from England, established in 2002, has committed itself to producing exclusively in Africa and, as far as possible, to using local materials. The leather sandals are embroidered with beads by hand, dyed and dried in the sunshine. The result is a sandal collection that stands out with its African culture and craftsmanship and which ﬁnancially supports the locals working on it. That makes every step taken in Laidback London sandals a good one. /cm

WWW.BYMALENEBIRGER.COM

WWW.A-DENIM.COM

BY MALENE BIRGER :

THE TOURIST

GILDAN:

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SUPER SOCCER SHIRTS

Football shirts are even suitable attire for the ofﬁce or the restaurant at the moment – thanks to the hype around the World Cup in Brazil. Those who want to demonstrate their cosmopolitan side should have several brightly coloured football jerseys hanging in their wardrobes and alternate between them accordingly. What most people don’t know is that many of those shirts will have been manufactured by the

Canadian company Gildan. The Montreal -based T-shirt specialists are amongst the absolute top brands and are impressing everyone, particularly in the USA and Canada, with their exponential sales ﬁgures. Gildan employs around 39,000 people worldwide and is one of the few vertical manufacturers for general clothing production that doesn’t place its main focus on efﬁciency, but also on responsibility for humans

WWW.LAIDBACKLONDON.COM

and nature. Ten years ago, when sustainability wasn’t yet the ‘in’ word for the textile business, Gildan was the first printed sportswear manufacturer in the wholesale sector to be awarded the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification. T-shirts, sport shirts, sweatshirts and socks – via their impressive distribution network Gildan have succeeded in attaining a strong positioning on the global market, which would not work without the strict company strategy, based on environmentally-friendly and socially responsible production methods. “Without environmental protection and fair, healthy working conditions for our employees we simply couldn’t do it,” confirms Glenn Chamandy, president and CEO at Gildan. And their aspirations are unabated: only in the past year the company managed to reach its ambitious goals in terms of waste reduction and greenhouse gases; two years earlier than planned. “In 2013 we also managed to source 52 percent of our energy usage from renewable energy,” reports Benito Masi, Executive Vice-President of Manufacturing. To compare: in 2012 it was only 36 percent. So it’s little wonder that for the sixth year running Maclean’s

magazine has put Gildan on their official list of Canadian companies whose “social responsibility” is considered to be outstanding. Thanks to a large number of employee-led initiatives and donation programmes, Gildan is continually trying to give something back to society – and by specific and wholly tangible means. The Canadians have already invested two million dollars into the creation of the Instituto Politecnico Centroamericano (IPC) in Honduras – just to name one of Gildan’s many projects. With the help of grants, people are trained in various careers, such as in the textile and clothing industry for example. Whilst many companies in this industry have only recently discovered the advantages of greater transparency and a public company strategy, detailed annual financial reports have been part of Gildan’s standard policies for years. So those who not only want to know who’s winning the game, but also what players and fans are wearing, should definitely take a look at Gildan’s company website during the next half-time or between World Cup matches. /gh WWW.GILDAN.COM WWW.GENUINEGILDAN.COM

THE MASTERPIECES

★

THE MASTERPIECES EDITOR’S PICK

J’N’C PROUDLY PRESENTS: THE MASTERPIECES THAT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME TRUE CLASSICS

TEXT CHERYLL MÜHLEN

BREAD & BUTTER | 8. – 10. July 2014 at Fire dept./L.O.C.K. Area, Tempelhof, Berlin Frankfurt | 13. – 16. July 2014 at B74, Berliner Strasse 74, 60311 Frankfurt/Main Zürich | 21. – 24. July 2014 Boot Root and guests at Labor Bar, Schiffbaustrasse 3, CH 8005 Zürich Hamburg | 1. – 4. August 2014 at Arizona Studio, Schulweg 26, 20259 Hamburg München | 9. – 12. August 2014 at M2 Garage, Gollierstrasse 23 Rgb., 80339 München Or by appointment in our showroom: please contact Uwe E. Maier or Andy Loesch for a fixed date at our showroom! AMTRAQ Distribution Berliner Strasse 74, 60311 Frankfurt, Germany, www.amtraq.com Uwe E. Maier: fon +49 171 5089605, mail@amtraq.com | Andy Loesch: fon +49 179 6892149, andy@amtraq.com

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PHOTOS BERND WICHMANN

SAILOR PANTS JESSE KAMM

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HOODIE (MODEL 61664) STONE ISLAND

As far as sporty street styles are concerned, hoodies are a must-have in every wardrobe and extremely versatile. They are comfortable enough for lounging around on the sofa and yet so stylish that they can even be

suitable evening wear – as long as the dress code isn’t ‘black tie’, of course. Italian menswear label Stone Island is renowned for its high-quality products and its skill at maintaining the balance between fashion and function. Our

‘masterpiece’ is equipped with the obligatory pouch pocket on the front, an elasticated waistband and a stretch seam. Thanks to the double woven mélange vanisé heavy jersey, the hoodie has different colour nuances –

WWW.STONEISLAND.COM 18

THE MASTERPIECES

Setting Sail — JESSE KAMM

on the outside as well as the inside. And the Stone Island patch on the sleeve is a testimony to its high quality.

It all began at a ﬂea market in Los Angeles. That’s where former model Jesse Kamm came across the one garment that changed everything: a pair of sailor pants. She took them home and created her own design based on the ﬂea market original. The result was

slightly flared, ankle-length sailor pants with a high waist and small front pocket, which are now a firm fixture in Kamm’s collections and which she wears pretty much every day, all year round. Apparently these trousers will fit anyone – thanks to many years of

working together with an expert seamstress. The key to the perfect ﬁt: the trousers don’t have any side seams. In addition to the timeless cut and perfect ﬁt, it’s also worth mentioning that the Californian label produces its clothing out of 70 percent

recycled materials, the company car runs on reused vegetable oil and the prints are made without toxic dyes. Green thumbs up from us!

57 — 03/2014

THE MASTERPIECES

Good Hood – STONE ISLAND

WWW.JESSEKAMM.COM 19

THE MASTERPIECES

Call of the Whales – PAUL & JOE SISTER

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PALAIS PAUL & JOE SISTER

When public bathing facilities ﬁrst opened in the 19th century, women and girls were obliged to cover up from head to toe. But gradually it became more acceptable for them to show their legs and expose more bare skin.

Perhaps this was due to the fact that female swimmers often had to be rescued from the water because their bathing attire was too heavy? But a good century later, after quite a lengthy absence, the classic one-piece swimming cos-

tume is returning to the beaches and pools. This time with a style upgrade. For Paris-based label Paul & Joe Sister, designer Sophie Albou has gone for the typical French chic with retro ﬂair and charmingly playful prints. The

WWW.PAULANDJOE.COM 20

`Palais´ model not only impresses with its tailoring, but mainly with its cute – yes, cute! – all-over whale pattern. Our beach highlight and masterpiece for the modern bathing mademoiselle.

THE MASTERPIECES

The Comeback – REPLAY

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DENIM JACKET REPLAY

Denim, denim, denim! As far as the eye can see. For the upcoming seasons, fashion’s most resistant fabric is continuing to ride the crest of the trend wave. Since the head-to-toe denim look has already established

itself as a real winner amongst the street styles, in addition to jeans and the denim shirt, the long-forgotten denim jacket is now on the fashion frontline. Maintaining its classic style and cut, the latest creation from the

Replay Women Maestro Collection S/S 2015 combines several details all at once: destroyed elements, patches and a striking stonewashed look. And it’s this intentional well-worn appearance that give the waist-length

WWW.REPLAY.IT 22

jacket both a bohemian air as well as a certain rock star attitude. The comeback of a faithful companion for those wonderful long summer nights.

THE MASTERPIECES

PARIS

Patina, please! – AGNES BADDOO

48° 51’ 54.591” N 2° 21’ 46.724” E

IT’S WILD OUT THERE.

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THE SAC 1 AGNES BADDOO

Stability and reliability aren’t exactly top of the list when it comes to fashion attributes. But sometimes that’s exactly what women are looking for: THE favourite item that will accompany them for many years to come. So it’s no wonder that scores

of ladies are falling head over heels in love with the Tote Bag by Agnes Baddoo, a replica of her mother’s 40-year-old beloved bag, which Agnes inherited and faithfully carried around with her until the strap broke. It was beyond repair and no other

model was a worthy replacement so Agnes asked a saddler to make her a new one. This copy was followed by a small collection. Which, according to the native New Yorker, will remain small. The cowhide ‘Sac 1’, which is handmade in Los Angeles, comes

in two sizes. Incidentally, Agnes Baddoo encourages her customers not to be over-cautious in their handling of the bag to ensure the untreated leather has a chance to develop its own patina and soft feel over time. AIGLE STORE, KÖ-GALERIE 60, 40212 DÜSSELDORF, 0211-13065988 - AIGLE.COM

AGNESBADDOO.COM 24

ANSONS - HENSCHEL, DARMSTADT - HIRMER, MÜNCHEN - KRAUS, HEIDELBERG - PEEK & CLOPPENBURG, FRANKFURT, BERLIN - POHLAND - AUTHENTIC STORE, KONSTANZ - LADEN 12, NÜRNBERG - MULLIGANS, WUPPERTAL - RIDERS ROOM, HAMBURG - HABAKUK, WÜRZBURG - TRÜFFELSCHWEIN, BERLIN - WARTH, BIBERACH

THE MASTERPIECES

Refreshingly Different THE RISING SUN & CO.

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PARKER PARKA CHAMBRAY THE RISING SUN & CO.

To enable them to ﬁght in the tough mountain conditions of the northern Alps during the Second World War, the 10th Mountain Division of the US-Army were equipped with particularly weather-resistant ski parkas.

And this was the inspiration for Californian menswear label `The Rising Sun & Co.’ to design their own version, made of American 8 oz. Cone Chambray. With its oversized front pouch pocket, the pullover parka provides its

wearer with plenty of space to stow essential items when they’re on the move. The tubular knit draw cords have vegetabletan dyed, hand punched toggles. Brass eyelets and natural thread are also used. This modern

WWW.RISINGSUNJEANS.COM 26

WWW.AMTRAQ.COM

‘Parker’ interpretation deﬁnitely does justice to its historical role model and is highly recommended as a great alternative to the classic parka.

THE MASTERPIECES

On the Road – G-LAB

Multipurpøse By Design

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ROADSTER G-LAB

Inconspicuous? At ﬁrst sight perhaps. But deﬁnitely not upon closer inspection. The ‘Roadster’ from the S/S 2015 menswear collection by Düsseldorf label G-Lab is a slim-cut, lightweight, 500gram jacket with plenty of practi-

cal extras. The laid-back equivalent to the classic bomber jacket is ideal for outdoor activities and protects the wearer come rain or shine. The triple-layered material with Teﬂon ﬁnish is breathable, as well as wind and waterproof.

The hood concealed in the stand-up collar can be easily stowed away, the sleeve cuffs can be adjusted as required and the hand-warming pockets with zippers render gloves superﬂuous when the temperatures drop.

And even if you’re not currently exposed to the elements, in the ‘Roadster’ you can still be sure you’ll cut a ﬁne ﬁgure.

Multipurpøse

BBB WWW.G-LAB.COM 28

City

Berlin, Airfield

Cløthing

8-10 /

July

A28

THE MASTERPIECES

The Wild One — SCHOTT NY

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626 VN PERFECTO SCHOTT NYC

It was made famous by Marlon Brando and James Dean gave it notoriety: the Perfecto. This biker jacket truly is an all-timefavourite. Never in his wildest dreams could designer Irving Schott have ever imagined how

the jacket he developed in 1928 would affect the world of fashion and, indeed, an entire generation (as worn by James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause”). Schott fondly named the jacket after his favourite Cuban cigar the

‘Perfecto’. The asymmetrical zipper, the slanted breast pocket, a small ﬂap pocket and the waist-accentuating belt are what made this American original so ‘perfect’. Following on from that, the 626 VN Perfecto is the newly

WWW.SCHOTTNYC.COM 30

WWW.PANORAMA-EUROPE.EU

interpreted classic: an iconic jacket symbolising adventure, freedom and rebellion for decades to come.

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES

TEXT ILONA MARX PHOTOS RAINER RUDOLF

LOS ANGELES

Cool Cities

ISN’T JUST

LOS ANGELES

A FRIVOLOUS GLAMOUR GIRL, BUT ALSO A BIT OF A RURAL, SMALL-TOWN BEAUTY.

Flashing camera bulbs and famous faces. Endless sunshine and blingbling fashion. An obsession with physical perfection and Lamborghinis. There is hardly another city that manages to capture our imaginations like Los Angeles does. And the funny thing about it: the clichés are substantiated at every turn!

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No one here takes themselves too seriously – except for the trafﬁc police.

its almost four million inhabitants, wants to prove to the world that it isn’t just a frivolous glamour girl, but also a bit of a rural, small-town beauty too. Farmers’ markets, crafts shops, suburban garden idylls, hippies, neighbourhood gossip: all of that is also Los Angeles. And possibly – if the hipsters who hang out at unimportant-looking junctions between somewhere and nowhere are anything to go by – this new L.A. could well be the L.A. of the future. An example of this development is the Silver Lake Junction, where, like two vapour trails crossing in the sky after miles of parallel travel, the legendary Sunset Strip and Santa Monica Boulevard ﬁnally merge. A cool café, a pretty bistro, a great fashion store, a one-of-a-kind barware shop and an ecological juice bar. No more than a handful of places, but they attract a steady stream of lively folk to the area. Walk a couple of hundred yards in any direction you choose and all you’ll see is residential areas slumbering in the sun. And the same goes for the other hotspots of the city, which covers roughly 1300 square kilometres. Los Feliz, Echo Park,

Downtown and the Arts District are all of a manageable size and have a cosy small-town community feel, like everyone knows each other. Who would have guessed? When it comes to fashion the denim industry in L.A. does, of course, still play the leading role: 7 for all Mankind, Guess, Hudson, Citizens of Humanity and Adriano Goldschmied all have their roots here. And for a good reason: everyone in L.A. likes to dress casually. Jeans and flip-flops are de rigeur – due of course to the Californian sun, which defines much of the locals’ wardrobes. Even most of the local labels that deal in higher fashion do without winter collections. What they can’t do without, however, is the epithet: ‘Made in the US’. The proximity to

Everyone in L.A. likes to dress casually. Mexico and its traditional highly skilled craftsmen make it easy for southern Californian brands to create elaborately produced products. And with DIY looks being so popular at the moment, this is a deﬁnite home-game advantage. The contrast between the glamour of L.A. that we see in the gossip columns and the cosy neighbourhoods of the DIY movements is only one of countless facets of this remarkable megacity. It would have been impossible for J'N'C editor-in-chief Ilona Marx and photographer Rainer Rudolf to cover even a fraction of these. But their guide will certainly give you a good head start for your own personal travel research on the City of Angels. FOR THE GERMAN VERSION OF THE GUIDE VISIT: WWW.JNC-NET.DE

LOS ANGELES IN NUMBERS Population: almost 4 million, making L.A. the second most populous city in the United States after New York City Ofﬁcial foundation date: 4 September 1781 City districts: 15 Length of the Los Angeles County coastline (from Malibu to Long Beach): 115 km Length of Rodeo Drive: 3.2 km Days of sunshine: average of 329 per year Walk of Fame: approx. 2454 stars Museums: over 300 Hollywood sign: 15 m tall and 137 m long Area: 80,000 km² Nationalities: from over 140 countries Languages spoken: over 200 Percentage of Latino population: over 46 percent 57 — 03/2014

The swanky aura of L.A. folk can sometimes be slightly off-putting. But upon closer inspection there is usually a twinkling eye to accompany it. Even if the Californian lifestyle sometimes seems to be drowning itself in glamour and kitsch, no one here takes themselves too seriously – except for the trafﬁc police, that is. On the contrary, Los Angeles has another decidedly unexpected side to it, diametrically opposed to the usual clichés. It’s as if the metropolis, with

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — STREET STYLES

LOS ANGELES STREET STYLES

SANDRA, 24, massage therapist Bathing suit & umbrella Vintage

THIBAULT, 26, dancer Shirt Frankie Morello Pants Anntian Shoes Raf Simons Glasses Vintage

MEEGAN, 30, sales at Charlotte Olympia

“IN LOS ANGELES WE

“I’M A BIG VINTAGE FAN

LOVE TO MIX OLD WITH NEW. AND OF COURSE AS SOON AS

Jumpsuit Lee vintage Blouse Reformation Shoes Charlotte Olympia Glasses Chanel Car Mercedes-Benz 1957 called ‘Fritz’

SO I’M REALLY IN MY JESSE, 38, fashion designer

ELEMENT HERE IN LOS

Outﬁt Jesse Kamm Hat Vintage Shoes Dieppa Restrepo Glasses Garrett Leight

ANGELES. ” MEEGAN

THE SUN COMES OUT: IT’S TIME

SULLY, 26, hair stylist

FOR BRIGHT

Coat Vision Denim jacket Miss Sixty Skirt Vintage Pants Idle Minds Shoes Miista Bag Vintage

COLOURS! ” SULLY

ROB, 30, dancer and choreographer Jacket Marca Pants Juliane König Shirt Prénatal Shoes George Cox Glasses Ambervision Hat Saint James

Shirt & Pants Iro Shoes Marni Glasses Céline Bag A.P.C. ISAAC, 50, actor (left) Outﬁt The Stronghold Shoes Ugg MIKE, 50, owner of The Stronghold

Outﬁt The Stronghold Hat Stetson Shoes Red Wing Shoes

MONTANA, 20, model Coat Kenzo Trousers Vintage Shirt Zara Shoes Balmain Bag Alexander Wang

“LOS ANGELES IS PRETTY RELAXED!” MONTANA

NICK, 53, consultant Jacket Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Shirt Brooks Brothers Pants & Shoes Comme des Garçons Ganryu Belt Kapital Glasses Thom Browne

57 — 03/2014

SYDONIE, 33, model

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL

LOS ANGELES RETAIL

BRANDS Amy E., Cathy Callahan, Ennie, Fixed Air, Jay Carrol, M. Ikeeno, Tom Webb, RTH RTH 537 North La Cienega Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90048 T +1 310 2897911 OPENING TIMES Tues – Sat 11 am – 6:30 pm RTHSHOP.COM

RENE SEES BRANDS

SHELTER HALF

THE WORLD AS

Aether, Almond Surfboard & Designs, Jungraven, Kletterwerks, Scout, Quicksilver

161 South LA Brea Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90036 T +1 323 9360225

HIS PERSONAL SOUVENIR

OPENING TIMES Mon - Sat 11 am – 7 pm Sun 11 am – 6 pm

SHOP.

WWW.SHELTERHALF.COM

SHELTER HALF

RTH

REINVENT THE CONCEPT OF TRADE.”

to provide space for young, creative brands. Space that these brands use in a self-determined way to create the ideal environment for their products. So it’s

not unusual to find a skip decked out with street fashion, a vintage Enduro motorcycle, or a collection of surfboards finding temporary accommodation at Shelter Half. Surfing, camping and motorcycling are the disciplines that best reflect the Californian way of life according to Davide. He was born in Italy, so he allows himself a special take on the American lifestyle. His most recent project, which is infused with the same idea, is the Casa Shelter Half on Abbott

Kinney Avenue in Venice Beach: a spectacular loft complete with roof terrace, meticulously renovated and kitted out with their own products, available to hire for brand events, product presentations as well as ﬁlm and television productions.

His enthusiasm for indigenous peoples and their hand-woven textiles was what gave Rene Holguin the idea for his shop. Why not open a store that combined the traditional styles of different ethnic groups? After all, the inspiration for their textiles, patterns and items of clothing often have the same origin in many different cultures. Plants, especially trees and their foliage, but also birds and their feathers, the sun and the moon are reoccurring images in the

textiles of North American as well as Latin American, Asian and African cultural regions. Rene sees the world as his personal souvenir shop and takes his pick as he sees ﬁt. The highlights on offer include ponchos made of Tibetan textiles and collars and jackets made from old unused hotel pyjamas. He also sources his range of ceramics from all over the world. A large proportion comes from M.Ikeeno, a Japanese ceramicist based in Los Angeles and Alaska who also

makes sculptures. The whole almost museum-like character of the RTH store is underlined by striking photography by Jay Carroll, taken in Arcosanti, an ecological architectural experimental city in the desert of Arizona, and by the spicy fragrance of Peruvian rosewood. Just a few steps away, Rene has rented a second shop where he sells his self-made leather accessories.

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“I WANT TO “I want to reinvent the concept of trade.” It’s no small feat that the owner of Shelter Half Davide Berruto has set himself. But he really means business. On the expansive 400 m² sales area of his concept store on South La Brea Avenue, you’ll be searching in vain for shelves of garments in different sizes and colours. The same goes for big names. After all, they are to be had en masse across the road at renowned denim specialist store American Rags. In his world, Davide wants

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL

BRANDS Alden, Dickies 1921, Filson, Pendleton, Red Wing Shoes, Stetson, Stronghold, Wolverine, Woolrich

THE STRONGHOLD 1625 Abbot Kinney Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90291 T +1 310 3997200

OPENING TIMES Mon – Sun 11 am – 7 pm

WWW.THESTRONGHOLD.COM

BAZAR

BRANDS

1108 Abbot Kinney Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90291 T +1 310 3142101

Agnes Baddoo, Anonymous, Mr. Freedom, Laguiole, Santa Maria Novella

OPENING TIMES Wed – Fri 1 pm – 7 pm Sat noon – 6 pm

It’s all in the name: denim by ‘The Stronghold’ really can withstand anything. The label was founded in 1895, which makes it the oldest still extant denim brand in Los Angeles. It is the L.A. equivalent of Levi’s towards the end of the 19th century in San Francisco. With the difference that L.A. was also home to the burgeoning ﬁlm industry. For example, Charlie Chaplin performed his famous production line antics in “Modern Times” wearing ‘Strongholds’

THE FACT THAT

BAZAR and Henry Fonda also wore a pair of battered Stronghold overalls on the refugee trek in “The Grapes of Wrath”. In 1950 production ceased temporarily – but now the label is experiencing a real renaissance. And it is also a real favourite amongst the stars. Whether Andie MacDowell, Amber Valletta, Cindy Crawford or Orlando Bloom – they all swear by the tradition-steeped denims. John Malkovich is even one of their best customers and

THE STRONGHOLD IS A REAL FAVOURITE AMONGST THE STARS.

SHE OFTEN TAKES RISKS WITH HER

regularly drops by the shop on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. And the fact that the trousers were ﬁrst designed with only men in mind doesn’t make them any less popular amongst the female clientele. Only recently Lana Del Rey popped in to buy a pair of jeans along with a men’s leather jacket.

Tina Wakino, the owner of Bazar, is a stalwart of Venice Beach. She was one of the ﬁrst to take up residence here 16 years ago, at the north-western end of Abbot Kinney Boulevard – which makes her a trendsetter on one of L.A.’s most popular shopping streets. The fact that her shop still has a fresh atmosphere is mostly thanks to Tina’s incredible energy. With great care and an expert eye she picks out textiles, vintage furniture, art

UNCONVENTIONAL TASTES DOESN'T BOTHER THE PASSIONATE RETAILER IN THE SLIGHTEST.

objects, jewellery and cosmetics. A personal collection that showcases her individualistic and unusual taste. The fact that she often takes risks with her unconventional predilections doesn’t bother the passionate retailer in the slightest. She was never just in it for the money anyway. She simply loves to surround herself with the beautiful things in life. Exotic vintage home textiles next to Laguiole knives, children’s clothing side by side

with Florentine soaps by Santa Maria Novella: these are not contradictions to Tina. And that’s how she continues to retain her position as a bastion of independent retailers in the increasingly commercialised world of Abbot Kinney Boulevard. 57 — 03/2014

57 — 03/2014

THE STRONGHOLD

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL

TENOVERSIX 8425 Melrose Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90069 T +1 323 3309355

OPENING TIMES Mon noon – 5 pm Tues - Sat 11 am – 6 pm

SHOP.TENOVER6.COM

THE LARGE NUMBER OF BRANDS

COOPERATIONS PROVE THAT

A.P.C., Acne, Carven, Creatures of Comfort, Dries Van Noten, Golden Bear Sportswear, Henrik Vibskov, Levi's Made & Crafted, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Tanner Goods, Tellason, Wood Wood

TENOVERSIX HAS A REAL TALENT FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY

MOHAWK GENERAL STORE

NETWORKING.

4011 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90029 T +1 323 6691601 OPENING TIMES Mon - Sat 11 am – 7 pm Sun 11 am – 6 pm

It’s a little bit crazy. A metropolis with almost four million inhabitants and the hippest place they have to offer is an unassuming road junction with a slightly provincial feel to it. For the L.A. hipster crowd, all roads lead to the Silver Lake Junction. Even though there aren’t more than a good dozen shops and cafés here at the crossroads of West Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. Despite this, it’s where the crème de la crème of the fashion and art scene hang

FOR THE L.A. HIPSTER CROWD, ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE SILVER LAKE JUNCTION.

BRANDS WWW.MOHAWKGENERALSTORE.COM

out. One of the key stores on the junction is the Mohawk General Store, run by the well-travelled and fashion-savvy couple Bo and Kevin Carney. The lovers’ story sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood romance and is almost too good to be true. The two met in Florence. Him: an American businessman on a production trip for his own shoe label. Her: a Korean student at the local fashion college. They fall in love and move back to his homeland to start a business in

L.A. The business booms, the ﬁrst shop is soon followed by a second and third, and the stores attain cult status. Bo and Kevin set up shop in two premises at Silver Lake Junction, in one of the coolest corners of the city. Their good taste and top quality range ensure they attract only the best clientele. We’re already looking forward to hear what the sequel holds.

3.1 Phillip Lim, Alasdair, Alexander Wang, A.P.C., Blackbird, Comme des Garçons, Creatures of Comfort, Horses Atelier, Karen Walker, Opening Ceremony, Peter Jensen, Tenoversix, Wendy Nichol

TENOVERSIX As if the Californian sun weren’t bright enough already: gleaming white is the ﬁrst thing that hits you when you enter Tenoversix. The only splashes of colour are provided by the products themselves. You almost feel like you’re in a gallery, which is in part due to the clever showcasing of the fashion items, poised on plinths and pedestals like

works of art. Tenoversix stocks a mix of like-minded designer brands including A.P.C., Acne, Alexander Wang, Vena Cava, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Band of Outsiders, Rachel Comey, VPL, Comme des Garçons, Peter Jensen, Karen Walker, Bodkin, Loefﬂer Randall, and the Tenoversix own brand — to name but a few. What they all have in common is their atten-

tion to detail that is also present in the choice of shoes, handbags and jewellery. Design objects, lamps, books and magazines are effortlessly integrated into the range. Cooperations with artists and designers they know from the East Coast like the New York interior design studio ‘The Future Perfect’, or New York light designer Lindsey Adelman, and

the record label ‘Mexican Summer’ from Brooklyn add some coast-to-coast ﬂair. Proving that Kristen Lee, Brady Cunningham and Joe Cole, the three owners of Tenoversix, have a real talent for multidisciplinary networking.

57 — 03/2014

MOHAWK GENERAL STORE

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL

ALCHEMY WORKS

THE HIGHLIGHT

26 East 3rd Street Los Angeles, CA 90013 T +1 323 8512200

OF THE STORE

APOLIS 806 East 3rd Street Los Angeles, CA 90013 T +1 213 6139626

AT THE MOMENT

OPENING TIMES

IS A DARK BLUE FIAT ABARTH

Mon - Sun noon – 7 pm

FROM 1959. ALCHEMYWORKS.US WWW.APOLISGLOBAL.COM

BRANDS Alice Park, Blind Barber, En Soie, Farmhouse Pottery, Futagami, Matthew Ready, Mud Australia, Riess, Steele Canvas, Stone + Cloth, Pfeilring Goldachs, Vincent Van Duysen

MAX & MORITZ 7209 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90046 T +1 323 8512200 OPENING TIMES Mon – Sat 11:30 am – 6:30 pm Sun noon 12- 5 pm BRANDS WWW.MAXANDMORITZ-LA.COM

Almond Surfboards, Armor Lux, Bearings, Bellroy, Echo Park Surf Squad, Fiat Abarth, Fort Standard, Heidi Merrick, Holmes & Yang, Imperial Barber Products, Kayu Designs, Larry Smith, M Ready, Proud Mary, Public Supply, Rose & Fitzgerald, Shinola, The Eternal, Victoria Morris, Will Adler

In L.A.’s up-and-coming Art District Linsay and Raan Parton wanted to prove that alchemy really can work. And it is certainly true that the two retailers, with their neighbouring stores Alchemy Works and Apolis, have the talent to turn their passion into proﬁt. The fact that they are also a couple explains the homogeneity of their portfolio.

MAX & MORITZ Despite this, both stores have a different concept so they complement rather than detract from one other. Apolis, run by Raan and his brother Shea, caters mainly to the sartorial needs of the male citizens of the world. As a socially motivated lifestyle label they wish to encourage worldwide communities and improve the lives

of underpaid workers with the aid of fair production methods. Linsay at Alchemy Works does without this theoretical concept, instead serving up genuinely hedonistic products. The highlight of the store at the moment is a dark blue Fiat Abarth from 1959, which, according to insider information, is the only one of its kind currently available in

the USA. But they’re not worried about ﬁnding someone willing to pay the asking price of 70,000 dollars. Only recently Leonardo DiCaprio showed great interest in buying it. Fashion, bikes, interior design, objets d’art, photographic books – everything that a good concept store should stock – round off the Alchemist’s portfolio.

They have nothing but mischief on their minds, the two goodfor-nothing characters by Wilhelm Busch, an old German poet and caricaturist, but despite this, the owners Esther Linsmayer and Nino Mier named their shop after the pair. The two cheeky lads remind them of their German roots. Esther a former model, and her son Nino, earned their living in gastronomy until just

over a year ago with the Foodlab Restaurant and Catering, also situated on Santa Monica Boulevard. It seemed simply too good to be true when the airy elongated shop just a stone’s throw away from the Foodlab Restaurant became available. Mother and son fell in love with the store on the spot and before they even had a concept in mind they had signed the lease. The concept fol-

lowed soon after: with Esther’s love of rustic chic and Nino’s contemporary minimalist tastes they travelled through Belgium, Hungary and Germany collecting vintage furniture, fashion accessories, interior design objects and home textiles. “Presents for oneself and things one doesn’t necessarily need but that make life sweeter,” is how Nino puts it. There’s always a good reason to

treat oneself in this store. In addition to gastronomy and retail, the mother and son team also specialises in interior design and art consulting. 57 — 03/2014

57 — 03/2014

ALCHEMY WORKS / APOLIS

DREAM COLLECTIVE Brass, enamel, gold and gemstones are the stuff Kathryn Bentley’s (jewellery) dreams are made of. In addition to these beautiful treasures the goldsmith also sells Moroccan rugs, purchased by Kathryn herself in North Africa.

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL +

LOS ANGELES RETAIL +

WWW.DREAMCOLLECTIVE.COM

OAK The Californian branch of the New York fashion institution is refreshingly different from the mainstream. The location: Downtown. The interior: raw concrete with exposed ventilation pipes. And the collections: To Be Announced, Avalon, BLK DNM. Oak lives and breathes avant-garde. WWW.OAKNYC.COM

TANNER GOODS This label from Portland, which specialises in bags and leather accessories, has just recently opened a branch in Los Angeles, making it one of the pioneers bringing fashion to the streets of Downtown L.A. In addition to the highly desirable bags they also sell belts, wallets, keyrings – and even bicycles! WWW.TANNERGOODS.COM

OBJET D’ART

BEATRICE VALENZUELA

Frenchman Christophe Loiron can certainly be proud of himself. His warehouse-sized vintage denim store has the reputation of being the best in Los Angeles amongst those in the know. He has put his experience as a vintage buyer for American Rags, another important jeans retailer in the city, to good use and created his own empire. Coming from the heritage jeans movement, he now develops and produces vintage inspired workwear together with the Japanese label Sugar Cane.

After 30 successful years as an architect, Alexandre Ferucci needed a change of scenery. After all, working with stars like Jack Nicholson, Johnny Carson and Tom Selleck not only brought him fame – it also meant a whole load of stress. Now the Italian deals in interior design objects and art objects and takes things a little slower. Alexandre’s favourite ﬁeld: the modernist period.

Designer Beatrice Valenzuela has a special way of expressing her love of Mexico. She produces her own shoes south of the border and sells them together with interior design one-offs from her favourite country at her small shop in Echo Park. She also stocks bags by local hero Agnes Baddoo.

WWW.MISTERFREEDOM.COM

7385 BEVERLY BOULEVARD

WWW.BEATRICEVALENZUELA.COM

57 — 03/2014

MISTER FREEDOM

SCOUT Designer vintage fashion can be presented in many different ways. Joey Grana, who is considered to be a real expert amongst his peers in this ﬁeld, presents his treasures in a light-ﬁlled, minimally furnished setting. The secondhand items he sells don’t really have much in common with what one would usually associate with used clothing. In mint condition and with an avant-gardist style, they are more like unused goods beamed in from a different time.

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — RETAIL +

LOS ANGELES RETAIL +

SCOUTLA.NET

UNION What makes Union really stand out is the emphasis on European and Japanese menswear brands. Comme des Garçons, Visvim and Ganryu are the labels that most often exchange hands across the narrow shop’s cleverly in-built counter. The client base is illustrious – Los Angeles is, after all, full of male celebrities who pay a lot of attention to their appearance – but the excellent staff are more than discreet.

Europe is a big thing in the States. And vice-versa! Garde, an interior design shop with an emphasis on European labels like Marcel Wanders, Michaël Verheyden, Tom Dixon and Vincent Van Duysen, really made a killing last year at the Parisian tradeshow `Maison & Objet’. It was rated as one of the top 15 concept stores worldwide. And it’s not hard to see why.

57 — 03/2014

WWW.GARDESHOP.COM

STORE.UNIONLOSANGELES.COM

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND The two New Yorkers Seth Weisser and Gerard Maione have been friends since college and in the high-end vintage fashion business for the past 20 years. Their shop on South La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles has existed for four years now and is the ﬁrst port of call for the most important stylists in the fashion and ﬁlm industry. The collection of vintage Chanel bags is particularly impressive. WWW.WHATGOESAROUNDNYC.COM

DENIM DOCTORS They are loved with a passion and look better with every patch: hardly any item of clothing is kept alive for as long as a favourite pair of jeans. And by any means necessary. The best repair care is available at the Denim Doctors on Beverly Boulevard. Their tailor still has the old machines at his disposal, ensuring your priceless favourite pair can be repaired authentically. The Denim Doctors also sell shoes, belts and heritage styles by Zip Stevenson, the designer from the Hollywood Trading Company. DENIMDOCTOR.BLOGSPOT.COM

TORTOISE GENERAL STORE Japanese homewear in the front part of the store and artfully arranged ceramics in the gallerystyle back section. The Tortoise General Store was brought to life by the two former furniture designers Taku and Keiko Shinomoto and is the Little Tokyo of Venice Beach.

57 — 03/2014

GARDE

WWW.TORTOISEGENERALSTORE.COM 47

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — SERVICE Photo: Adrian Gaut

Photo: Adrian Gaut

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — SERVICE

LOS ANGELES SERVICE

On the doorstep of the most popular section of Sunset Strip, with a million-dollar panorama view of the whole of Los Angeles at the back – the three most important criteria in real-estate jargon (location, location, location) are more than fulﬁlled by the Standard Hollywood. And even if Ian Schrager’s Hotel Mondrian is just a few steps up the street and the legendary nearby Chateau Marmont exudes

THE LINE

a tad more glamour, when it comes to hipness they can’t beat the Standard. Architectonically the house is reminiscent of a sixties motel, a look that was taken up in the interior and applied consistently throughout. The 24/7 restaurant is ﬁtted out in the style of a classic sixties American diner. Thanks to its generous opening hours it’s a favourite amongst guests who have had far to travel and are still

struggling with jetlag. The hotel attracts a young, international and illustrious clientele. Australian models, German newcomer directors and Scandinavian indie bands wander in and out. The rooms are decorated in a retro-futuristic style, not exactly run-of-the-mill for this price category, and come in ‘relatively large’, ‘large’ or ‘very large’. These spatial excesses allow for daring designer ﬂourishes like

the dominant Andy Warhol prints on the curtains. The rooms facing the pool are absolute favourites, as they all have balconies and afford fantastic panorama views over Los Angeles. There is another branch of the hotel group downtown, the roof terrace of which is a central meeting point for the local nightlife. STANDARDHOTELS.COM

New hotels spring up like mushrooms in Los Angeles and the offer can sometimes be bewildering, but despite this The Line is a new addition that will certainly be the talk of the town. For one thing the striking 1964 building on Wilshire Boulevard is completely unrivalled, placed as it is, in the middle of Koreatown. For another, the concept, interior and service sets new standards. Designed by Sean Knibb, the multitalented interior and furniture designer who was

also responsible for the homes of Cameron Diaz, Ridley Scott, Halle Berry and Roman Coppola, the hotel combines cool modernity with rustic charm. Raw concrete walls pose an interesting contrast to the somewhat folkloristic seating and the retro wall décor of the ﬁfties. Also designed under Knibb’s direction is the interior of the POT restaurant, which is supervised by the cooking legend Roy Choi. Choi, who is one of the founders of the food truck movement

in Los Angeles, mixes Mexican inﬂuences with his native Korean cuisine. A health food restaurant, set in a kind of greenhouse on the hotel’s pool deck, serves as a culinary counterweight to the exotic menu of POT. The Line Bar, however, is the territory of the Houston brothers who have also established a great reputation on the L.A. club scene. A concept store by art and design collective Poketo selling pretty interior design objects and the free rental of beautiful Linus bikes round

off the perfect hotel lifestyle, whilst the extremely helpful staff ensure that The Line is more than just the sum of its abovementioned parts. The ultimate feel-good location. WWW.THELINEHOTEL.COM 57 — 03/2014

57 — 03/2014

THE STANDARD HOLLYWOOD

57 — 03/2014

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — SERVICE

GRACIAS MADRE A vegan Mexican? If you are acquainted with Latin American cuisine then this concept might seem a little strange, considering that meaty savoury elements tend to play a major role on Mexican menus. However, Matthew and Terces Engelhart, who founded Gracias Madre together with executive chef Chandra Gilbert in fancy West Hollywood, have gained substantial experience with vegan food and do not agree with that assumption. In addition to two equally popular restaurants called Café Gratitude, Gracias Madre is now the third temple of healthy, vegetable-based nutrition in L.A. owned by the Engelharts. Chandra already has 33 years of restaurant business under her belt; for ten of those she worked exclusively with vegan food. Together with the Engelharts she is also responsible for the interior design. And in order to make everything especially healthy as well as ecologically and socially sustainable, a large proportion of the products that are brought to the table at Gracias Madre come from the family-owned farm in Vacaville and are supplemented with produce from local farmers’ markets. GRACIASMADREWEHO.COM

FLORES & THE LADIES’ GUNBOAT SOCIETY

PALIHOTEL & THE HART AND THE HUNTER

lique. The latter looks a little like a traditional Catalonian restaurant, but when it comes to the cuisine you’re deﬁnitely transported to France. Oysters, meat platters and Alsatian tartes prove the point deliciously. Baking is one of the mainstays of République. Margarita, who has a list of international references just as long as that of her husband, is the in-house baker at this gourmet republic and in addition to the restaurant business, République fans can also purchase her breads and patisserie to enjoy at home.

Chateau Marmont, towering like a fairytale castle over Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, is also a Hollywood legend in its own right. Designed and built in 1929 as an apartment block, and heavily referencing the gothic chateaux of the Loire, it was turned into a hotel during the Depression. It survived all the earthquakes between 1933 and 1994 without major damage and in 1976 it was granted ‘historical cultural landmark’ status. Especially the bar and the restaurant are favourite meeting places for big Hollywood names. A ban on photography and the greatest discretion allow stars and starlets to meet for a sundowner or dinner without having to constantly look over their shoulders. For film buffs it’s also a bit of a pilgrimage site: Sofia Coppola’s film “Somewhere” was made here in 2010 and the opening scene of the neo-noir film “The Canyons” was filmed in the Chateau’s bar. But without a reservation you won’t stand a chance of making it onto the hallowed turf.

It might be hard to believe, but in some respects Los Angeles is really like a village: When Amal Flores was looking to open a restaurant, it was a strange coincidence that he was offered the same premises where his artist father had a seminal exhibition in the seventies. A clear stroke of destiny for the newcomer to the gastronomy scene, especially because the location on Sawtelle Boulevard was perfect, already being surrounded by cool gastro concepts as well as having a great outside terrace. Amal seized the opportunity and, in deference to the fateful family episode, transformed the place with a light seventies touch. Walnut wood, leather, brass, brickwork and marble are the classic materials he used for the interior design. Rustic, hand-painted ceramics made especially for the restaurant are additional nice touches. But when it comes to the food Flores relies fully on the skills of Brian Dunsmoor. The passionate chef, who is also involved in ‘The Hart and the Hunter’ project, has developed a menu entitled `The Ladies’ Gunboat Society’ that aspires to the highest of standards but without unnecessary frills.

REPUBLIQUELA.COM

WWW.PALI-HOTEL.COM

WWW.CHATEAUMARMONT.COM

WWW.FLORESLOSANGELES.COM

RÉPUBLIQUE Yes, it is possible to eat like French royalty – even in the middle of Los Angeles. Walter Manzke and his wife Margarita are making it possible. Walter, who learnt his trade at establishments including the legendary El Bulli, as well as under Alain Ducasse, seems to be a workaholic. The list of restaurants that have profited from his skills is endless. In the summer of 2012 he finally started his own venture, together with his Philippine wife and his sisterin-law, by opening the Wildfl our Café-Bakery in Manila. One year later they opened a second restaurant in Manila, Taqueria Petty Cash in Los Angeles and Répub-

CHATEAU MARMONT

Kentucky meets California. Located on the ground floor of the cool Palihotel on Melrose Avenue is another hidden gem of the local gastro scene. The two owners and chefs Brian Dunsmoor and Kris Tominaga combine South American recipes with European classics and modern US classics in a refreshing way. “Country food” is what the two of them call their culinary concept, and they’ve also applied it to the interiors: old-fashioned tiled walls, eclectic mixes of flowery crockery, a large wooden table in the centre of the room: the shabby-chic aesthetic of the location delightfully complements the attitude of the owners and the staff. One would be forgiven for thinking you were at a private gathering rather than at a commercial restaurant. A feeling that the hip clientele really rate highly on the commercialised Los Angeles scene. So on any given night you can be sure that The Hart and the Hunter is packed to the rafters. Which means you might need a little patience because the guys adhere strictly to the ‘first come, first served’ rule and don’t even take reservations.

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COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES — SERVICE

LOS ANGELES SERVICE

American Vogue describes her fashion as “serene, trend-proof and a palette cleanser”. Ex-model Jesse Kamm considers it minimal and easy-going with a slightly rural aesthetic. Barely a decade after she started, her small label is sold in 20 boutiques nationwide and she has become the go-to designer for a whole community of L.A. Eastsiders; creative types such as photographer Hilary Walsh, jewellery designer Annie Costello Brown and textile designer Heather Taylor. JESSICA FERN KAMM

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was born in Illinois, USA. After working as a model for ﬁve years she founded ‘Jesse Kamm’ in Los Angeles in 2005, as a high-end, artisan label. The brand is sold at exclusive boutiques across North America, Europe and Asia.

Sustainability efforts: • 60-70 percent of the fabrics used to produce the line are dead stock and remnants. • Approximately 50 percent of in-house remnants are recycled and repurposed into other products. • The textiles are handprinted using non-toxic dyes. • The company car is powered by 100 percent recycled vegetable oil.

Ms Kamm, your label is thriving and was even recently featured in American Vogue. You must be proud of what you have achieved these past few years. Yes, I feel really comfortable with what I am doing. I’m proud and happy about where everything is. It was very nice that Vogue did the ﬁrst big one-page story on me. Last spring all my friends came by to pick up everything they had ordered from the collection, and I was taken by how many amazingly talented friends I have, who supported and represented me out in the world. All these photographers, designers, jewellery makers, ceramicists, writers, and fashion designers that I would consider part of my community, together with other craftswomen and fans of my collection. I wanted to get these girls together so we could have a

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — JESSE KAMM Jesse Kamm

portrait made of us in the canyon down the way. So the title of the portrait is ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ (a reference to the title of the album by Joni Mitchell, note from editor). I pitched it to Vogue and they wanted to write a piece about it. So it all kind of came full circle. Is it hard being a young designer in such a huge city like Los Angeles with so many competitors and so many places that sell fashion? I don’t even look; I don’t even know what else is going on. I just keep my head down and focus on what it is that I am interested in. Once I start to look at my competitors it can feel really overwhelming. I’ve learned over the years to just try to stay true to my focus and what I am trying to share with the world. When it comes to social media I hardly follow anyone. I think we are so inﬂuenced by the same things that generally the people I respect will be doing similar things. That’s ﬁne, but I prefer to stay focused on what I am working on. As a self-taught designer how did you start designing clothes? It is, after all, quite a technical process. In the beginning, all my shapes were super simple like

rectangles or triangles: really basic, and it was only when I hired a patternmaker that my ideas could translate into more complicated shapes. The ﬁrst three years I really tried to just do whatever I was capable of. My patternmaker and I have now been working together for nine years. She is so amazing; she is 78 years old and she’s like a ballerina with a piece of cardboard and a pair of scissors. We really complement each other so well. One day she’ll retire and I don’t know what I’ll do then. We’ve been a great team and I am very grateful to have her. You are a one-woman company. Why don’t you work together with a PR company for example? Yeah, I am a lone wolf! When I was a model I had no control over my own life: they told me what to eat, where to go, how to dress, what to look like, how to act, where to live even: feeling so out of control really had a negative effect on my body and mind. So when I started the collection I really wanted to keep everything to myself because I felt I needed to learn all the parts of my business before I could share it. And then I realised I enjoyed all those aspects equally. Obviously,

I could work with a press ofﬁce, but I get great press on my own for a small company. I don’t need to have samples in every issue of every American magazine every month. That’s just not essential for my business. What is it that fascinates you about fashion? There are a lot of associations with the word ‘fashion’ that are very off-putting. I prefer the word ‘style’. I like watching people who have a sense of who they are and dress in a unique and interesting manner. I am not interested in the fashion circus, the runway shows: that’s just not essential to my little part of the marketplace. I am also interested in watching style change and grow over the years. I see things I remember from a different era and here they are again, repurposed in a new way in a new time and a new shape. That’s what I ﬁnd fascinating. We all have to be dressed, and I’m interested in helping people to dress. But other aspects of the fashion industry I don’t feel connected to at all. How would you describe your style, your philosophy, your collection?

It is minimal and simple with a slight farm life inﬂuence, having grown up in the countryside. I feel like I am always in a work shirt, overalls or a jumpsuit or hat, which reminds me of those country days of tractors and all that. You have these signature pants, your Sailor Pants. Is that the only piece that is a constant in every collection? No, there are other shapes that have continued on. There is one piece I did in my second collection and there is still a version of it nine years later. I have all these building blocks and I just pull them out and change details like the colour or the shape or the positioning of the pocket. But it’s like there’s a common thread running through, a core from which it all works. You started out selling at Colette. How does it feel to start at the top end? Of course it’s exciting, but isn’t it also rather daunting? Where else is there to go from there? For me success and wealth have a lot to do with freedom, not really with the stores my designs are sold in. I have a lot of freedom now and that is why I feel I

continue to be so successful. I am so lucky to be represented in every single store that I love across the whole of the United States. The stores I want to shop in, the collections that I want to hang next to: that’s where I am. I feel happy and honoured and proud of that. There was a time when I was in these stores that were extremely trendy and they placed these huge orders, but it didn’t feel right. It was all trendy ‘surfy’ expensive brands but they weren’t saying anything close to what I was saying. I love and respect Colette to the end but at the same time I just think it’s not a match right now. Jeremy Scott and Jesse Kamm hanging together – that simply doesn’t make sense. As long as there are women who want to wear what I am giving them, then that is enough for me to feel totally honoured and pleased. I would never sell to a store that I didn’t feel was a right ﬁt. I don’t want to go back to a place where I don’t feel at home. Speaking of what feels like ‘home’: you are not originally from L.A. You moved here 15 years ago. Why? The sunshine, oh my gosh, the sunshine! I was 23 years old and

I went on a vacation with my family to Hawaii. I was there for a week and when I left I said to my boyfriend at the time, “I am not spending another winter here in this cold, dark, grey place, I am moving to the sunshine.” We considered Hawaii but in the end the choice fell on California and we booked an airplane ticket to Los Angeles. I remember my first day here; we drove across the country and we went straight to the beach and sat on the sand. The sun was setting and I thought, “All I had to do was pick up and go!” And that had been the very first time that I had made my own completely independent decision: “This is important to me and I am going to just go and find my own happiness.” And it was so easy. All I had to do was save the money and go through the steps, A, B and C. From that time on I’ve always got what I wanted. Because I knew I could. That’s what I am going to teach my son: if you want something, you can have it, you just have to go and get it. 57 — 03/2014

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — JESSE KAMM

LOS ANGELES TALKS JESSE KAMM

Denim designer Mike Hodis has fulﬁlled his personal American dream. The committed devotee of vintage Americana talks to J’N’C about the importance of traditional craftsmanship and the human touch in the production process.

MIKE HODIS was born in Romania as the son of a carpenter. The family immigrated to the USA in 1982 when Mike was 13 years old.

THE RISING SUN & CO. Starting as an experiment in his garage, Mike Hodis founded his own label The Rising Sun & Co. in 2005.

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The company manufactures primarily with American-made fabrics and works with machines, techniques and methods of the early 1900s with a 21st century approach.

Based on traditional craftsmanship, The Rising Sun & Co. is “striving to create timeless, quality, lasting garments while utilising all the best that modern technology and techniques have to offer”. Beyond denim, The Rising Sun & Co. offers a full line of recreated period footwear, tees, shirts and outerwear.

You started your business in L.A. So is it very important for you to be based here along with all the other major denim brands? Yes. But at the same time I just happened to live in L.A., which is the global epicentre of denim production. Most of the denim brands that are considered to be the ones to watch are based here, so it’s good to be in a place where you have the possibility to develop new things and have the technicians literally working before your eyes. Alternatively, living outside L.A. you would have to Skype or mail what you have in mind without having this personal connection. There is also a pool of talent in L.A. with regards to tailors and individuals, patternmakers; such skills ultimately give us an added advantage. But we don’t just rely on what’s at hand. We also create quite a bit of machinery or certain techniques or tools of the trade ourselves. We make adjustments to create unique stitch variants done on speciﬁc machines, which is something that very few people are doing.

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — MIKE HODIS, THE RISING SUN & CO.

Mike Hodis

You say you are producing like they did back in the early 1900s but with the 21st century in mind: what is it that fascinates you so much about the past? I work with antique sewing machines. When most people walk in and see these working relics, there is a sense of awe and amazement. That sentiment is what I fell in love with, and what made me want to bring the two worlds together. These machines are treasures, so I wanted to recreate the same type of awareness and sensibility about them that existed during the golden era of denim, the thirties. I didn’t want to approach things the same way most people do today: bringing your sample to the workshop for a quote, taking it to a show, selling it and coming back with the orders. What I chose to do was to work backwards. I actually built the shop before I had the product line. I wanted to have the infrastructure before making the ﬁrst article. How much money we could make came secondary to how to make it.

Are you a romantic person? Oh very much so, hopelessly romantic in a way. I am fascinated by the times when life was a little bit simpler. Just take the smartphone: it’s useful of course, but we tend to clutter our lives up these days, instead of aiming at more quality. In the twenties and thirties more and more new products became available but they were still handcrafted to a large extent. By the ﬁfties everything became increasingly mechanised and had started to lose that human touch. It’s obvious you fell in love with American culture. Do you think the American dream came true for you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. If I still lived in Romania, none of my achievements would have been possible, no doubt about that. Just the very fact that I was here, where I felt anything was possible, made me believe that it actually was. It’s almost a cliché, but having been here, immersed in the culture and realising that immigrants from all walks of life have

somehow made their impact, was very inspiring. That’s why for me personal achievement is much more important than profit. I felt “Let’s just make the most beautiful product we possibly can and worry about how all this will come together later”. That’s the DNA of the company. You don’t necessarily need a lot of money to do it: it’s more about perseverance and the ability to overcome the self-doubts. In the States I find more of an optimistic spirit than anywhere else. When did you actually fall in love with denim? I guess it was when we first came to the States. As we had no money, we got second-hand clothes from various charities, in our case from the church. People would bring their old items and have them lined up in the basement of the church on some racks. The immigrants would go there and take the clothes that fitted. I remember picking two items: one brown corduroy jacket with elbow patches and one pair of trousers. There I saw my first American denim and I remember how unusual that was because in Romania there was no such thing. If someone wore jeans there they were kind of avant-garde. He had either paid a lot of money for them or had connections. So touching the first pair of jeans

was a memorable experience, denim for me was in some way the ultimate symbol of freedom. So when were you finally ready to start with your own business? When I first worked for a company designing graphics for the denim division, I asked the designer there if I could sketch out an idea I had for him. So I did a sketch with a novel way of doing the pockets and the guy thought it was pretty cool. So he took it and only a week later I had the sample in front of me. Even though it never made its way into the product line it was the first time that one of my ideas went all the way from A to Z. I was totally hooked. No other fabric offers that kind of variety: cotton, indigo-dyed, woven on a loom … From the same raw materials you can make a 15-dollar pair of jeans or one that sells for 1500 dollars. How do you go about creating a new collection? Do you get your inspiration from old pieces? My hobbies of course inspire me, vintage cars and motorcycles for example. Last season’s collection was called Gentleman Racer. It was a small collection of items you would be able to wear in a very smart or casual, understated way. From a styling point of view we start off with what makes sense: a few jackets,

a short coat style, our traditional double-pleat-waist denim jacket, and see what we need to add. We don’t have the resources of a big company, so we need to work as efﬁciently as possible. We make sure that what we have is good before we even start making the pattern. And the success rate is actually very high. Are you a tailor yourself? Yes, within reason. I still stitch, but work together with the guys when it comes to patternmaking. I know how to draft a pattern but the process of making it demands so much more time and effort. I do all the graphics on my own at the studio in my house, but we do the garment development in the workshop because it involves other people. There are a lot of people jumping on the heritage bandwagon at the moment. What do you think about it? In a way I am glad, but also a little bit disappointed. A lot of people who are doing so-called heritage don’t seem to have a reference base or are simply not able to offer anything progressive. You need to have paid your dues. What separates the people who have the ability to create a product that is truly timeless, is a kind of database, a certain level of knowledge that

is being collectively poured into an item, a tribute to what once was, without simply regurgitating or replicating something. It’s this ﬁne line between creating something that is familiar but at the same time also progressive, which, in my opinion, very few people possess. Is there something that you would like to leave behind as a kind of legacy, something you would like to transport with your collection? I do believe that what we’re doing here is important and worthwhile. All of us enjoy what we’re doing. But I don’t look at it in terms of a legacy at all, or take it that seriously. I believe this is the right thing for me to be doing now. I can’t think about what it will mean ten years from now, or what kind of impact this will have in the grand scheme of things. We have been able to create eight jobs, right here in America, which is great. We are creating a high calibre product that we are all very proud of. It’s a privilege to be able to do what we’re doing. We don’t kid ourselves that we’re on a mission to save the world. Thank you for talking to us! My pleasure.

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COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — MIKE HODIS, THE RISING SUN & CO.

LOS ANGELES TALKS MIKE HODIS

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — BARNEY WATERS, K-SWISS/PALLADIUM BOOTS

LOS ANGELES TALKS BARNEY WATERS Barney Waters, CMO of K-Swiss and Palladium Boots, talks about how he got to where he is today, his approach to marketing, what’s new and exciting with K-Swiss and Palladium Boots and – ghosts.

“THE FUN ABOUT SNEAKERS IS THAT THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT

Barney Waters

COLOURS, STYLES

Born and raised in the suburbs of London, Barney Waters crossed the Atlantic in 1995 to pursue his career in marketing, eventually landing at Boston-based Puma. In 2009 he was tapped to relaunch the heritage boot brand Palladium, creating a brand position around city explorations.

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Waters has also overseen Palladium collaborations with menswear designer Neil Barrett, and legendary brands Maharishi and Stüssy.

Working as head of Marketing for Palladium Boots when its parent company, K-Swiss Global Brands, was bought by E.Land World Limited, Barney Waters was promoted to the position of Chief Marketing Ofﬁcer at K-Swiss, where he oversees global marketing for K-Swiss, Palladium Boots and OTZshoes.

What are the challenges facing a vintage brand like Palladium in Europe? Especially in Europe, people feel and appreciate the vintage aspect of the brand. Washed canvas has been a great driving force, the biggest line for us in Europe. So we are taking the whole stonewashed thing and are bringing it to leather by using a burnished look. There’s a colour palette coming from Europe that wouldn’t sell here, but works great over there. Long term we will be modernising the line too, continuing to evolve rather than simply relying on our history.

What secrets do the company’s archives hold? A lot of the shoes in the archive are originals, old shoes or prototypes that never saw the light of day; things that were tested and just didn’t work. So there are all sorts of different stages of development there. What is Palladium coming up with next? We’ve just introduced the Flex Collection, a kind of lightweight plimsole from our archives, but with the Palladium DNA: stonewashed canvas, our signature rubber toe and diamond band. For fall/winter 14 the ‘Explorer’ will probably be one of the most popular lines. Partly done in quilted Teﬂon, it has this Moncler kind of inﬂuence. That’s been selling very well for the season. But the biggest thing by far is our collaboration with Alpha Industries. The tactical boot, inspired by the iconic MA-1 Jacket, this fall/winter is the biggest programme we have. You have the Gold Rush success era with Puma under your belt; was it that experience that

seduced you to work in the shoe business? Yeah, I’ve always been a marketer but originally in the software business, back when it was still fun. It was very progressive and dynamic, but when I came to Puma I got the chance to work in the youth culture industry. That was the key: it wasn’t so much about footwear as about combining my work with my passion for youth culture: Fashion, art music, style. That’s what I feel I am supposed to do. Palladium was like a blank sheet, but it also had a lot of heritage, when you took it on. How did you go about marketing the product and combining those two aspects? Coming from a big corporation like Puma, I realised, there was a chance to put myself to the test. Palladium didn’t even have a website! That’s when I realised it was an opportunity. How often as a marketer, do you get the chance to build from scratch a brand that has authenticity? I could develop a brand tomorrow, but one that has heritage and backing, that’s the key. It

AND MATERIALS. IT’S LIKE CANDY.”

attracted me that the French Foreign Legion wore Palladium. People have a short attention span. How can you convince them that Palladium offers something for the here and now, too? Brands can’t survive in a museum. People want to know if you’re real. You have to think about what you’re standing for today. People like that Palladium is a 1947 French military brand, but how many days of the week is that going to apply now? So we created a new modern position about exploring urban terrain in Palladium, city exploring. Functionality in a concrete environment, that is very modern, very youthful. The idea of adventure in a city environment is a relevant one nowadays and gives us good differentiation when other boot brands show you images of mountains and hiking ...

Except Converse ... Yeah and the difference between Converse and Palladium is functionality. Converse is cool but it’s not very comfortable. It’s just a vulcanized shoe. Ours is a lugged rubber bottom that can actually take you through a concrete environment. We are more functional than the fashion brands, and more fashionable than the function brands. Palladium is positioned between the irrelevance of being only functional, and the temporary nature of being only fashionable. And what about K-Swiss? How is that packaged? K-Swiss has a similarly interesting history so we spent a lot of time putting the foundation under the brand. The result is a 1966 heritage tennis brand from America. Three words sum it up, altogether: Heritage American Tennis.

The tennis idea keeps us from being considered a generalist, offering sneakers for various sports. In that case you’d be competing against Nike, Adidas, Puma. But if you are a tennis brand you’re a specialist and you’ve changed the playing ﬁeld to a different set of competitors. As a generalist, Adidas make tennis shoes but they’re not a tennis brand. They are going to be a soccer brand this year, because of the World Cup. And they’ll be a basketball brand when their new Derek Rose shoe comes out. We are a tennis brand every day of the year. In the heritage tennis arena there are brands like Lacoste and Fred Perry. But Lacoste is French, and Fred Perry is English. We own American heritage tennis. Differentiation is also why we’ve positioned Palladium as a city boot, which makes us different from

Timberland. And the functional urban exploring aspect makes us different from Dr. Martens or Converse. The best thing about repositioning the K-Swiss brand around its American tennis heritage roots is that it’s true. So many brands struggle each season to come up with something, so you must’ve heard every pitch in the world and have sometimes thought, “That’s a bit of a stretch!” We’re not creating anything clever, we just took what was there and revealed it. Your clientele for both brands is quite young, so how do you reach them? Any guerilla marketing? For Palladium our ideal audience is young, but we’ve also got the old Palladium customer generation coming back. The muse for both brands is similar: 18 to 24-year-olds who young

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BARNEY WATERS

Mr. Waters, after all the recent changes, where does K-Swiss stand at the moment? We’re presently a year into rebuilding K-Swiss from top to bottom, including the company building to create a more collaborative working atmosphere. Rebuilding a brand isn’t just about making new shoes but also about changing the way we work, too. Designers, developers, product line management are all coming together in a central area to create synergies.

COOL CITIES / LOS ANGELES TALKS — BARNEY WATERS, K-SWISS/PALLADIUM BOOTS

HISTORY OF THE BRANDS K-Swiss was founded in 1966 by the Swiss brothers Art and Ernie Brunner, both keen skiers, who applied ski boot technology to tennis. The company became famous for the K-Swiss Classic, the white, ﬁrst all-weather, leather tennis shoe in the United States. Purchased in 1986, by an investment group, the company established operations in Taiwan and Europe, in the early 1990s, to broaden its distribution on a global scale. In 2009, K-Swiss acquired and relaunched Palladium Boots. Founded in 1920 as a rubber tyre company that manufactured and supplied tyres to the wartime aviation industry, Palladium switched it up after the Second World War, to build footwear as reliable as their tyres.

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In 1947 the legendary Pampa boot was born, which was scooped up by the French Foreign Legion as their ofﬁcial boot.

The Foreign Legion put the boot to the test in the desert conditions of North Africa, and throughout the Atlas Mountains. In 2013, when the South Korean apparel distributor E.Land World Ltd. purchased K-Swiss, Palladium Boots came under their roof as well.

kids aspire to be, and who we, in our 40s, want to become again. Somewhere in the middle is the ideal person. Obviously they’re living online. So we’ve tried to make Palladium a very visually driven brand: we made films about exploring cities. Different cool people going to different cities and finding the hidden underground parts. We did one about L.A. and tried to find places that were off the beaten track, places with history like the L.A. River, and Watts Towers. We wanted to find places that are in no tourist guidebook. Going to Detroit with Johnny Knoxville and to Tokyo with Pharrell Williams, we designed the marketing for storytelling and shareability. Facebook is on the decline and young people are using social media less, how are you responding to that? True! I don’t think anyone has figured out how to harness social media. I think everyone accepts that’s where everyone is living but no one’s figured it out. The quickest way to ruin it is to commercialise it, and the moment that happens, it becomes less useful. So for Palladium we’ll focus more on street style, showcasing the best social media shots of people wearing Palladium. Do you have any collaboration in the pipeline for K-Swiss?

For K-Swiss we have Billy Reid, a designer focused on Americana with a southern twist: he’s based in Florence, Alabama. He won the CFDA (Council for Fashion and Design America) award for menswear and he used to wear K-Swiss, so it was a real partnership. He called us. The best ones are always the ones who call you. In the past, Neil Barrett did a collab; he called us, Stüssy called us, to do something with Palladium. I ﬁnd it really hard to go out and chase people. We just did a fun one-off with Atmos: they did a glow-in-the-dark Palladium. And then there’s the much bigger one with Alpha Industries, the MA-1 Flight Jackets, which ties in with the history of Palladium when they used to make aircraft tyres. I think for K-Swiss we have to be careful not to chase someone else’s method. What fascinates you about the shoe business apart from being able to play a role in youth culture? Sneakers are almost as relevant in youth culture as denim. But the fun about sneakers is that there are so many different colours, styles and materials. It’s like candy, and it continually changes and evolves. One very personal question: I heard you believe in ghosts. Is that true? (Laughter) It’s true! I would say

they fascinate me. I love watching paranormal TV shows. It’s just one of those things, when you don’t put limits on your thinking. I really loved reading “Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer and author, and afterwards never looked at the sky in the same way again. For me it’s all about the limitlessness of life; you shouldn’t put up boundaries to the way you think. It’s the idea of unlimited possibilities that fascinates me so much about learning. So are you always pushing boundaries? I am still really driven. I show up full of energy every day, passionate about what I am doing and what I can accomplish, despite the fact I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. I have a deep desire to achieve something that is relevant. Fashion is all about being noticed and standing out. Those people who get photographed outside the fashion shows they didn’t just walk out of the house to go to the supermarket. They want to be noticed.

Thank you very much for talking to us.

BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

ILLUSTRATION FRAUKE BERG

Let’s get the party started! We’ve been eagerly looking forward to it and ﬁnally celebration time is here! Our 15th anniversary ﬁlls us with happiness, joy and, of course, a fair bit of pride. But what would this special occasion be without our friends and business partners? To start the party off, here they are: some of the best, coolest, most progressive and established labels in the fashion sector who accepted our invitation to tell us a little bit about themselves and cast a look back at the events of the past years as well as looking ahead and sharing their expectations and plans for the future.

R E P L AY, CEO GERMANY

Thomas Wirth

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2. What are the most important five stages that your label has undergone in past years? I start a review from today: 2013: Replay signs a deal with FC Barcelona as the official sponsor of clothing and footwear. 2011: Replay brand celebrates its 30th anniversary. 2003: We Are Replay, the Group’s high-end jeanswear line appears for the first time. 1991: Besides shirts and jeans, the Replay total look takes form with thousands of articles in the collection each year. The Replay & Sons line dedicated to kids’ clothing is launched. 1978: Claudio Buziol registers the Replay brand.

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? The collection should reﬂect my life and passion and needs to be sustainable and fairly produced.

DRYKORN, FOUNDER

4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? Definitely jeans! No other piece of clothing has always been amongst the top of all garments, no matter how much trends changed – I love denim. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? It is a denim, I call ‘Hyperflex’, an innovative mix of special fibres that give super elasticity, excellent fabric recovery and superior comfort. This product offers complete freedom of movement; holds its shape wear after wear without sagging or changing shape, and has a superb feel – try it and you won’t want to be without it anymore … 6. What is it that you particularly love about the fashion industry? I love working for a company that allows me to be myself – Replay does that … I like to be creative and innovative – which is what I have been able to be for over 20 years in this industry.

7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? Yes, for sure … I wished we had more fairtrade, reasonable payment and proper working conditions in the production companies worldwide!

Marco Götz

8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? I hope we stay as creative and innovative as always, and as authentic as we have been for the last 30 years!

1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? It wasn’t a certain point. We are strongly moving forward and are very happy to reach further goals. The next presentation of the collection is still the most exciting moment.

9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? I have achieved more than I ever expected at a young age. I have a great family and a wonderful profession in a strong company. I am very satisﬁed with my life. For my family and myself, I just wish for health and satisfaction.

2. What are the most important stages that your label has undergone in past years? In 2001 we started out with ladies’ trousers. In 2006 we ﬁrst tried out shirts and knitwear for men. By 2010 we had achieved a whole product programme for men and women.

10. Is there any comment you might have for us on our anniversary? Stay hungry, dear J’N’C and all the best for the future … Happy anniversary!

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? We are always driven by the wish to satisfy and surprise our customers with fresh ideas. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? It is still the jeans, the five pocket pants and all their variations. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? Top item is our ‘Black Rag’ theme, an ergonomic and asymmetric programme, which renews the common look of the last five years. 6. What is it that you particularly love about the fashion industry? The movement – the constant flux of everything!

7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? No. 8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? I hope we’ll have the chance to show all our ideas and products to a biggger audience. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? Just health and peace. 10. Is there any comment you might have for us on our anniversary? We’ve been very impressed by the extraordinary development of J’N’C during the last 15 years. Please continue!

57 — 03/2014

1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? I would say there were two signiﬁcant moments: ﬁrstly, the death of Replay founder and president Claudio Buziol in 2005. And secondly, in 2010 Equibox Holding S.p.A. acquiring 51 percent of Fashion Box.

BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

S P RIN G /S U M M E R 2015

AIGLE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Gideon Day 1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? Aigle has been around for over 160 years, and thus has been through many exciting periods. I think that probably the most important moment in our recent history was the launch of the apparel collections in 1988. Previous to that the brand was exclusively concentrated on footwear.

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2. What are the most important five stages that your label has undergone in past years? Aigle has seen a number of evolutionary changes over the last few years that have helped us to redefine the brand and our business model: firstly, the evolution from a solely footwear brand to a predominantly apparel brand; the progression from an exclusively wholesale business model to a retail driven one, the expansion of the brand into Asia, the emergence of our women’s collections as a driving force for the brand, especially in Asia and, most important, the evolution of the brand identity from active outdoor to premium lifestyle. 3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? For our 2014 collections we were inspired by the vision of a fusion between authenticity and modernity. Mixing our heritage with fashion,

luxury with comfort … and, more specifically, mixing function and fantasy. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? I think that the popularisation of military clothing has been the biggest influence on fashion in the last 20 years. From colour to details, from styling to shapes, from fabrics to camouflage… military clothing these days has become a basic part of every fashion wardrobe. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? The fashion highlight of our 2014 collection is the Parka revisited – based on authentic military detailing, but with contemporary fabrics and fashion styling. 6. What is it that you particularly love about the fashion industry? Fashion is a mirror of society. Like society it is constantly changing and yet in need of solid principles and reassuring values. It is about aspiration and desire. Fashion does not only exist in clothes … it is a state of mind, and a context. It is in the air, on the streets. Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening in the world and the way we react to it. I find it fascinating that fashion touches everything we do.

7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? I think that the seasons are out of sync with reality. Trade fairs, selling periods and sales calendars, none of which match today’s evolving climate nor with consumer buying patterns. I also regret that customers today seem to have lost sight of the value of original design and quality. People are shocked by stories of cheap labour in developing countries, and yet have no ethical problem with buying a T-shirt for the price of a cup of coffee. I would like to see people consuming less, with more thought. 8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? I hope that the brand continues in its current direction, and can fully accomplish its transformation from an active outdoor brand to a premium lifestyle positioning. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? More time … there is never enough time. 10. Is there any comment you might have for us on our anniversary? Happy anniversary … keep up the good work!

PREMIUM INTERNATIONAL FASHION TRADE SHOW

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jul 8–10

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MOC Munich

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BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

DR.DENIM, CO-FOUNDER

Alexander Graah

57 — 03/2014

1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? It has been quite a ride since we showed our ﬁrst collection back in 2004, with a lot of things happening along the way.

2. What are the most important five stages that your label has undergone in past years? - We’ve gone from ‘garage’ operation, where we did everything ourselves, to a structured operation with many awesomely competent and creative people now working here. - We’ve embarked on the inevitable journey towards retail through our own channels to make our entire collection available and to offer a seamless experience of the brand. - We’ve brought all creative work in-house, including art direction. - We’ve gone mentally digital, launching our online flagship store before any physical stores as well as embracing social media all-in. - And after many obstacles along the way, we have recently made our first shipment of jeans across the Atlantic: A small step for mankind but a big step for Dr. Denim.

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? An extremely digital business model combined with strong elements of sustainability. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? Skinny jeans. They started happening for real back in 2004. Since then, they’ve really taken over the world, shifting the fit paradigm entirely. Pessimists have declared them dead many times over, and yet they have not only continued to survive but have established themselves with ever increasing strength. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? Our skinny drop-crotch fit ‘Leon’. It’s virtually impossible to try them on without falling in love. 6. What is it that you love particularly about the fashion industry? There’s a fantastic dynamism driven by creativity that really appeals to me. 7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? I wished more companies would have a higher level of integrity and work from their own ideas instead of doing their utmost to copy

brands and designers they look up to. Copying is just pathetic. 8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? For more people to discover our Instagram feed @drdenimjeans simply because it’s a very personal feed that we are dedicatedly involved in and quite humbly proud of. We haven’t outsourced it to an ad agency that just posts generic material – it’s all us with nearly all the photos taken ourselves. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? That 2014 becomes the year of the American road trip, more than ever before. So far, I have one scheduled from Seattle via Portland to SF. I’m hoping to add one along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the autumn. If I can ﬁt in both of these, it’ll be a great year. Travel is my most important source of inspiration. 10. Is there any comment you might have for us on our anniversary? Huge congrats from all of us! We love how you have evolved and how you’ve managed to build such a strong magazine in an era when printed media has struggled in so many ways. That’s quite an achievement to be proud of. Keep it up!

BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

PME LEGEND, C E O - G E R M A N Y, A U S T R I A , S W I T Z E R L A N D

Robert Theijssen

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1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? One of the most exciting moments in the company history of Just Brands was the very successful launch of PME Legend’s TV advertising in the Benelux countries.

2. What are the most important five stages that your label has undergone in past years? The most important steps we have experienced with the PME Legend brand are: - Becoming the no. 1 brand on the Benelux fashion market. - The way we think and act is based on partnership. That’s the only way to achieve your goals. - Expanding our company from 40 employees five years ago, to 110 today. - The company philosophy is still our focus; making sure that our employees enjoy their work and that we ensure personal growth in the tasks set within the teams. - For the last two years our priority has been the international development of the brand. We adapt to the specifics of each country whilst focusing on our company mission, strategy and concept and building on our successful foundations.

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? I would have created an entire jeans collection in orange so the whole of Holland looked the part when celebrating the World Cup. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? It has to be jeans. Everyone has one or more pairs of jeans in their wardrobe. They have developed so much over the last 15 years. And the jeans sector has seen huge technical innovations recently, especially in the last five years. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? That would be our Indigo sweat pants. They are really comfortable to wear and hard to tell apart from a regular pair of jeans. 6. What is it that you love about the fashion industry? I love developing a strategy that combines creativity and innovation. Every season sets us new challenges and keeps things exciting. 7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? Progress has to be made with sustainable pro-

duction. We also have to improve the working conditions for people involved in the production process. 8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? We want to continue developing the PME Legend brand step by step and continue offering our partners and end consumers increasingly high quality combined with a unique image and good service. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? To stay healthy and enjoy life. 10. Is there any comment you would like to give us on our birthday? Congratulations on the anniversary of J’N’C, especially to Rainer Schlatmann who has always been 100 percent committed. J’N’C always puts the spotlight on the actual fashion and the story behind it, which is something that appeals to a lot of people in the industry. Keep up the good work and here’s to the next anniversary!

VISIT US AT PANORAMA BERLIN 08-10 JULY 2014 MODEFABRIEK AMSTERDAM 13-14 JULY 2014 WWW.NO–EXCESS.COM

BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

ALBERTO, CEO

Marco Lanowy

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1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? The Alberto company was founded over 90 years ago. In such a long company history there are countless exciting and emotional phases. With regard to the last two decades we have achieved a lot and have continuously grown – starting with our visibility, to our internationalism down to the company itself. Today I am proud that, despite the growth from a locally-based trouser manufacturer to an international global player, we have managed to keep the business as a family-run company. This knowledge and the feeling that every day we have the freedom to be able to act independently really makes me happy. 2. What are the most important ﬁve stages that your label has undergone in past years? It’s not only the fashions that have changed since Dr. Albert Dormanns established the Dormanns trouser factory in 1922. In the 1980s Georg Walendy developed the trousers and turned them into an innovative item of clothing, and from then on positioned itself under the newly created brand name ‘Alberto’. And from that point in time a pair of trousers was no longer just a pair of trousers. With market launches like modern checked trousers with young tailoring and new pattern interpretations Alberto soon captured people’s imagination. That was certainly a milestone in our history. In the 1990s Alberto was established as an internationally operating company. Today our trousers are sold in over 56 countries. In addition to the pronounced product expertise, this internationalisation forms the foundation for a successful business development, which manifests itself in steady growth and in an expansion of the portfolio. In 2004 Alberto Golf was launched, followed by the jeans label ADenim in 2009, Alberto Golfwoman in 2013 and Alberto woman in 2014. And another important point in our history is the development of our team in Mönchengladbach. Today over 100 employees working at our headquarters are taking the company into the future. 3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it?

Our task is to develop a product that the wearer and the retailer like. The fabrics used and the fit have to be right. It’s not about the technicalities of the trousers, but about the use of innovative materials. I want the consumer to make a careful decision when making a purchase and hope that we can recognise their wishes and requirements for our product in advance and provide them with the perfect pair of trousers. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? Everything that has two legs. And jeans are in fact one of the most important fashion items. Together with other types of trousers they are the one product that appeals equally to men, women and children. The development of stretchwear in the denim sector has paved the way and enormously expanded the possibilities in jeans design. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? All denim models with Super-Fit. The new denim fabrics make this fit possible. Whether as luxury denims with T400 elastic fibre, laser jeans with understated destroyed effects or concept denims with contrasting colours on the inside, the slim silhouette is defining trouser culture for men. A cool look that I really like. 6. What is it that you love about the fashion industry? That there are so many people who pursue their careers with passion in this sector. Our products are simply the result of a love for good trousers and denims. Being surrounded by people who share this enthusiasm for the tailoring, the goods, the workmanship, is wonderful.

7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? We live in a constant state of ﬂux in the fashion world and have to master the balancing act between continuity and change or innovations. My wish is that the throwaway mentality in our sector stops spreading any further, but that an appreciation of durable products and designs establishes itself. Valuable pieces are created on the basis of values. Honesty, dedication, passion – lived and breathed and conveyed day after day, resulting in fashion with a soul and character. 8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? We are already living out our wishes. So far we’ve always had the freedom and luck to be able to turn our visions into a reality, without us ever having to jump through hoops. On the contrary in fact, we are still developing our character. We still have all components in our own hands. My wish for the next season and beyond is that we can keep this freedom. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? For my profession I wish to maintain my openness to everything unconventional. And to continue being interested, curious and sincere. Stay a big kid – this philosophy accompanies me. 10. Is there any comment you would like to give us on our birthday? For 15 years J’N’C has accompanied us on our path and we are happy about this inspiring friendship. We know that something like this can only be achieved in the long-term with a good team, heart and soul and lots of commitment. So on that note: happy birthday and congratulations on 15 years of passion for fashion and many interesting articles. We take our hats off to your success story.

DÜSSELDORF 30 JULY – 1 AUGUST 2014

All important trends. All strong brands. Straight at the beginning of the season. In a first-class environment.

WWW.GDS-ONLINE.COM

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BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

Düsseldorf 25 –28 July 2014 www.the-gallery-duesseldorf.com

Fashion Trade Show

BENCH, MARKETING MANAGER GERMANY

Norbert Loew 1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? The most exciting moment was in fact the process of entering the German-speaking market and establishing Bench there.

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2. What are the most important five stages that your label has undergone in past years? Stage one was entering the German-speaking market, followed by establishing Bench in the street style segment. Stage three was defined by opening the flagship store in Berlin, located in Mitte (Rosenthaler Strasse 50). The next two steps were our participation in Bread & Butter when it returned to Tempelhof and the launch of the Performance range three years ago.

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? Our idea for 2014 was something we now call ‘multi-purpose city clothing’. The Bench collection is split into two ranges that have been designed with a functional and integrated approach – clothing that enables a 24-hour lifestyle, functional yet stylish, as well as performance with its fabrics and features like

waterproofing and breathability. We are super excited about this and what will be happening with it in the upcoming seasons. 4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly influenced and defined fashion in the last 15 years? For Bench it is definitely the hoodie! For 25 years it has been an icon – past, present and future. Current design features include anatomically constructed hood shapes engineered for enhanced peripheral vision and adjustable hood features for custom fit. 5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? The concepts of ‘multi-purpose design’ explore adaptability, safety and motion addressing 24hour functionality. This is represented by our top fashion items like the ‘Industrious Hoody’, which includes a zip-in feature enabling it to be zipped into other products in the range. Another one would be ‘Visionary’, a flyweight, low bulk hoody that packs away conveniently into its hood to form a pillow. 6. What is it that you love about the fashion industry?

The fashion industry is constantly changing and I love the vibe! It’s rich in variety and never static in its progress. I also ﬁnd it very exciting to see how new things and ideas are accepted. 7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? I guess this is not an ‘improvement’ in a true sense – but I would love to see multi-purpose clothing being even more integrated into street style. The features have a lot of potential.

Red Carpet 27 –29 July

8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? I hope that Bench will continue to become ﬁrmly established and that both the industry as well as consumers will appreciate the effort we have been putting into the brand lately. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? There’s not that much I have to wish for – just to be happy and healthy. 10. Is there any comment you would like to give us on our birthday? Thanks for 15 years of being you – and being an icon to us! Happy birthday!

Botschaft . Hammer Hallen . Rheinlandsaal

BRANDS & BRAINS — 15 YEARS OF J’N’C

NEU 6280L DOPPELPIQUÉ-POLO DAMEN

anvil.eu

NUDIE JEANS, CEO

57 — 03/2014

Palle Stenberg

1. The last 15 years have been very eventful for the fashion industry. What was the most exciting moment (positive or negative) in your company’s history? When we became 100 percent organic. The most positive aspect of our company is our many teams and friends around the world. The most negative was when someone stole all our sample collections back in 2005. That could have been the last season for Nudie Jeans but we managed to get them back.

4. What item of clothing has, in your opinion, most strongly inﬂuenced and deﬁned fashion in the last 15 years? I need to think about that. If I look at my wardrobe I would have to say a pair of jeans and a T-shirt but maybe that’s a boring answer.

2. What are the most important ﬁve stages that your label has undergone in past years? The ﬁts, the fabrics, the production, the workers, the environment, the people who make the difference.

6. What is it that you love about the fashion industry? I don’t know. I’ve never worked in the fashion industry. We come from the denim industry. If you ask us, there’s a big difference.

3. If you were to create a collection in 2014, what would be the idea behind it? It would be exactly the kind of collection that we are making right now.

7. Is there anything you would like to improve in the fashion sector? The workers’ wages.

5. What is the top fashion item for 2014 in your collection? A pair of dry jeans that can be worn for a long, long time.

8. What do you wish for your label in the coming season? That Nudie Jeans stay true to Nudie Jeans. 9. And what do you wish for on a personal level? I hope I can continue to work with inspiring and hardworking colleagues. It’s the people that make the difference. 10. Is there any comment you would like to give us on our birthday? Pierre D'Aveta for president! And of course we also wish you a very happy birthday and every success for the future.

WHAT’S YOUR

FASHIONALITY DIESER ST HAVE U M S A UE IST D S FÜR PPEL-PIQ T GIBT E O IR D H S M E IL A S T. FEIN ANV KONTR S NEUE SHIRT IN IT A O M D L . N H O E P T S EIC VARIAN R NEUE H ZUGL HIN ZU N. U N S E IS PORTLIC IO B S H N D S E N A B F U N FAR EETS ODISCH BASIC M 7 STARKE 1 AUCH M IN R E M B R A O SSF . BASIC EUER PA SAISON EN IN N R R E H UND DAMEN

RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE — THE BROKEN ARM, PARIS

TEXT GERLIND HECTOR

THE BROKEN ARM, PARIS

MARAIS, MON AMOUR

BRANDS 3.1 Phillip Lim, Adiev, Bernhard Willhelm, Carven, Cédric Charlier, Isaac Reina, Jacquemus, Kenzo, Nike, Raf Simons, Swash

THE BROKEN ARM 12 RUE PERRÉE 75003 PARIS FRANCE T +33 1 44615360 WWW.THE-BROKEN-ARM.COM

An espresso for just two euros? In the middle of Paris? Hard to believe, but it’s true. Of course not on the Champs-Élysées, where tourists and pickpockets abound, but in the old Jewish quarter Marais, between the Place de la Bastille and the Place de la République, which has developed into one of the trendiest quarters in the Seine metropolis. Here on Rue Perrée three dynamic ‘jeunes gens’ have fulﬁlled a dream, which is considered the next logical step of their blog ‘Des Jeunes Gens Modernes’, which they started a few years

ago. And the title is also reﬂected in the store: here everything is dedicated to the topics, the ambience and the products that ‘young, modern people’ in big European cities want to see. And the three owners Anaïs Lafarge, Guillaume Steinmetz and Romain Joste, who are said to have a unique ability of identifying trends, are aiming at appealing to all the ﬁve senses of their clientele. The small shop premises on the corner to Rue Gabriel Vicaire are light and friendly, with bonus points for the small park and

playground right opposite. Directly in front of The Broken Arm you’ll also ﬁnd one of the 1202 rental stations of the self-service bicycle hire system run by Paris City Council, Vélib’, a portmanteau of ‘vélo’ and ‘liberté’. So if you’ve overindulged in the blueberry tarte with cream or the goat’s cheese quiche at Broken Arm, you can burn off the excess calories by pedalling home. With the cream-coloured walls and the prettily patterned ﬂoor tiles, you might feel as if you’ve been transported to Scandinavia. Light wood partition walls and

the warm parquet flooring also exude understated Copenhagen charm. It’s all very European, a factor which is further reinforced by the beautifully presented range: bright statement shirts by Raf Simons, floral patterned sneakers by Carven and boxy trouser suits with pansy print by 3.1 Phillip Lim – the fashions and accessories are showcased like precious diamond solitaires. “Every designer we add to our portfolio is carefully examined by all three of us,” emphasises Guillaume Steinmetz. “Do they fit

in with our DNA? Can we identify with their vision and is the design impeccable?” The three store owners, who all previously worked in creative professions, place the focus on interesting newcomers. Jacquemus is currently regarded as a highly promising Parisian talent; his idea of ‘colour blocking meets asymmetry’ is being observed here with fascination. And the minimal leather accessories by Isaac Reina, whose atelier is just around the corner, are also on sale at Broken Arm. Integrating local designers from the neigh-

bourhood into the international product range is a clever way of adding variety. The selection is small but exquisite, and they want it to stay that way too. “Although we think globally, we also try to capture the unique Marais ﬂair,” explains Guillaume. The holistic approach is extremely important to the Broken Arm team. Here it’s not only the customers’ sight, touch and sense of taste that are stimulated; there is now even a Broken Arm fragrance. The ingredients reﬂect the materials used inside the store: a delicate woody note

dominates. Guillaume is currently dreaming of creating a special soundtrack for The Broken Arm. What can we expect to hear? “Tracks that are as to the point as our store, of course,” laughs Guillaume Steinmetz. “Typical Marais with an individual, international note – deﬁnitely not super-trendy, but with plenty of charm.”

FIND MORE SHOPS ON WWW.JNC-NET.DE

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Ofﬂine instead of online – three Parisian bloggers wanted to return to the analogue version of reality so at the beginning of 2013 they opened a small but perfectly formed concept store including a café. It’s not only epicurean specialities served here though, but also stylish fashion and accessories, the DNA of which is precisely matched to the unique ﬂair of the Quartier Marais.

RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE — ATELIER AKEEF, BERLIN

A T E L I E R A K E E F, B E R L I N

SUSTAINABLY SOURCED STYLE

57 — 03/2014

Right in the middle of Berlin two Brits have opened a menswear store that is second to none. And the interesting thing about it: not just the fashion and accessories, but also the interior design all have something in common. They are sustainable, fairly produced and fulﬁl the highest aesthetic standards in terms of design and style. Not possible, you’re saying? Alan and Michael are showing us how it’s done!

Furnishings made of old wood remnants, walls painted with ecological paints and green fashion on the shelves – it might all sound like a sandal-wearing eco-warrior’s dream at first. But the fashion stakes are a lot higher here: Atelier Akeef in Berlin is a sophisticated meeting place for friends of stylish sartorialism. Two Brits opened the first ‘ecological & sustainable lifestyle store for men’s fashion’ in September 2013 and their idea is still unrivalled today. With their store, Alan Sommerville and Michael Ashley have fulfilled a dream that needed to ripen and mature for a few years

before becoming reality. A few years prior, the pair had opened a small store in Kreuzberg, which eventually had to make way for a pawnshop. This was the ideal time to come up with a new business idea. Alan and Michael were able to combine their two biggest passions: their love for fashion and the environment. “For quite some time we had been thinking about what is really good and positive for the world,” remembers Michael, who moved to the German capital from Manchester around ﬁve years ago. And at Max-Beer-Straße 31 you can see how these environmental aims have been translated into a

practical project with good taste and a great sense of style. The wooden ﬂoorboards are wide and natural and the locallysourced clay walls are either dark grey or cream, or clad with salvaged wooden boards painted in different colours. The highlight: almost all materials are reclaimed and were lovingly upcycled for Atelier Akeef. “We deﬁnitely wanted a clean look and painstakingly treated the reclaimed wood with a sandblaster and oil,” explains Michael. “The walls were painted with environmentally-friendly paints.” The same goes for the steel girders in shiny oxblood red, which

separate the front part of the store from the rear. Up a few steps, next to the sales counter, there is also a small seating corner. Fresh ﬂowers and mellow background music contribute to the absolute feel-good atmosphere, which even the best feng shui consultant couldn’t have done better. And why Berlin of all places? It was a weekend trip that encouraged Michael Ashley to stay. After studying at university and a few manager jobs in retail he was looking for new challenges and a new place to call home. For him, Berlin was love at ﬁrst sight. “The city is just really exciting,”

ATELIER AKEEF MAX-BEER-STRASSE 31 10119 BERLIN T +49 30 21982645

he laughs. “Berlin is obviously a tourist magnet, yet still incredibly young and open to new ideas and creative concepts.” Michael and Alan had the support of their good friend Davide Grazioli, the owner and designer of Atelier Awash, for the interior design of their gem of a store, which covers an area of roughly 140 m². “His label is ecological and sustainable, which meant that we were on the same wavelength right from the start,” says Michael Ashley. And the items stocked by Atelier Akeef leave no fashion desire unfulﬁlled either: accessories, shoes or exquisite

menswear – it’s all there. Lots of the customers are amazed that all of the products are ‘eco’. Brands like La Compagnie du Kraft, Thinking Mu and sporty sneakers by Véja meet the very highest demands when it comes to style and design, but all pursue the shared vision of sustainability and longevity. Just like Michael and Alan, who are currently planning their own menswear line. So what will it look like? We’ll just have to wait and see, but rest assured, good taste and a good conscience will be guaranteed here too!

WWW.ATELIERAKEEF.COM

BRANDS Ambre Botanicals, Atelier Awash, Clans of Scotland, EKN Footwear, Hirsch Natur, Johnstons of Elgin, Kings of Indigo, Knowledge Cotton Apparel, Korres, La Compagnie du Kraft, Maharishi, Millican, Mühle Organic Shaving, Parlez Clothing, The White Briefs, Thinking Mu, Twothirds, Uniforms for the Dedicated, Véja

FIND MORE SHOPS ON WWW.JNC-NET.DE

57 — 03/2014

RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE — ATELIER AKEEF, BERLIN

TEXT GERLIND HECTOR PHOTOS CLAUDIA GOEDKE

D F R O S T, S T U T T G A R T

AND LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION

57 — 03/2014

Who actually knows their brand values, enjoys developing ‘lovemarks’ and arranges key looks? The team at Stuttgart agency dfrost has come up with a whole host of visual marketing solutions for their one overriding passion: bricks-and-mortar retail.

Dfrost, the ‘Agency for Retail Identity’ in Stuttgart, shines in gleaming white. The walls, ﬂoors and furniture are all purist and practical. Which only underlines the highly concentrated working atmosphere that suffuses the space when the team of around 50 staff take care of their core business: making the point of sale the point of inspiration. No easy venture if you consider the current challenges faced by bricks-and-mortar retailers. The times when it was enough to stock a few half-way decent items, often casually presented in the shop window without much thought at all, are long

gone. And the World Wide Web has deﬁnitely played its part: you can now get pretty much every product under the sun any time and any place. Are we perhaps suffering from consumer overkill? Nadine Frommer, who manages the agency dfrost together with the brothers Christoph and Fabian Stelzer, answers this question with a clear “Yes and no!” “Of course consumerism no longer has very much to do with necessity in the Western world, but is increasingly being controlled by our emotions,” says Frommer. The simple impulse to buy, the famous ‘I want’ concept is still

very much relevant, she says, but also has to be stimulated.

Keyword: ‘Emotional Branding’ And this is exactly where dfrost comes in, whose team consists of experienced retail marketing specialists and project, event and communications managers. Nadine Frommer and Christoph and Fabian Stelzer also brought architects, graphic designers and designers on board when they founded their Agency for Visual Marketing and Retail Design in

2008. A bold step in a time when the imminent demise of stationary retail is being predicted, and online shopping is booming more than ever. “What a lot of nonsense!” say the young Stuttgart locals. “There’s a reason why Jades in Düsseldorf or Bikini Berlin are doing so incredibly well. The key is the translation of a very speciﬁc attitude to life, which also has to be clearly recognisable and tangible for the customers.” And the dfrost team in Stuttgart knows how that works. The majority of its staff grew up with online shopping yet still have a real passion for real-life, physical shop-

RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE — DFROST, STUTTGART

TEXT GERLIND HECTOR

RETAIL & ARCHITECTURE — DFROST, STUTTGART 57 — 03/2014

Fabian Stelzer, Christoph Stelzer and Nadine Frommer

ping trips through lovingly decorated stores, where well-trained, ambitious sales staff serve their clientele to the highest standard. Frommer, the Stelzer brothers and their team are already one step ahead. Here the keyword is ‘emotional branding’. According to Nadine Frommer, it’s all about emotionalising the shopping experience. Preferably with carefully curated products and brands or multi-disciplinary consumer worlds, which are presented to the customers as one coherent overall vision. Clients like Tommy Hilﬁger, Swarovski and Victorinox, for whom dfrost has already developed tailormade concepts, were precisely analysed for exactly this purpose. What is the DNA of the brand? How do I turn simple products into real ‘lovemarks’ and arrange seasonal key looks, resulting in a

harmonious lifestyle world that stirs emotions?

Think global, act local “Shops need to score points as important meeting places where customers can have sensory, haptic experiences,” says Christoph Stelzer. “That’s not an option in print media or online. Even though the sensory experience is a decisive purchasing factor.” But the goods presentation is just one aspect of the whole picture. From the shop window to the interior design down to the merchandising, everything has to be consistent and palpable for all the senses. This can be supported with the integration of multi or omni-channel strategies.

Often neglected, although hugely important, is also the local identity of the store. After all, the same concept works very differently in a shopping mall in Los Angeles than in the pedestrian zone of Freiburg. “Think global, act local” is therefore an important principle for dfrost. Christoph Stelzer is optimistic and in no way worried about the truly dedicated retailers who know how to make the most of their unique selling points and can still impress their customers. The current challenging situation for many local stores is forcing them to have a rethink, he sums up, but that can also be a good thing. “In the long term it will inevitably lead to a higher quality in retailing.” WWW.DFROST.COM

DFROST Nadine Frommer, Christoph Stelzer and Fabian Stelzer founded the ‘Agency for Retail Identity’ in Stuttgart in June 2008. They specialise in visual marketing solutions for a wide range of clients like Adidas, Boss, Calvin Klein, MercedesBenz, Roeckl, s.Oliver, Strenesse, Swarovski, Tommy Hilﬁger, Tom Tailor, Victorinox and Yves Rocher.

SEE MORE FASHION ON WWW.JNC-NET.DE

Silk top BALENCIAGA Blouson jacket, necklace with magnifying glass pendant & ring with dark stone BY MALENE BIRGER Mini skirt BELSTAFF Coat BURBERRY Silk scarf HERMÈS Narrow bangles with colourful stones ANNA VON BERGMANN Broad bangle & minimalist ring INA BEISSNER Watch SHINOLA Narrow rings MARIA BLACK Narrow ring with colourful gemstones SABRINA DEHOFF Ring with small stones & OTHER STORIES Sneakers, socks & bangle with panther heads VINTAGE

Dress & necklace CHANEL Leather top JOSEPH Jacket & OTHER STORIES Silk scarf, bangles & ring HERMÈS Rose gold rings BJØRG Rose gold watch SHINOLA Silver ring POMELLATO Socks & sneakers VINTAGE

Shirt & belt BY MALENE BIRGER Mesh top BELSTAFF Leather shorts LALA BERLIN Ring & OTHER STORIES Faux-fur coat, sweatbands, socks & sneakers VINTAGE

Blazer TIGER OF SWEDEN Cardigan JARDIN DES ORANGERS Necklace with shark tooth pendant GIVENCHY Knitted top HIEN LE Shirt BY MALENE BIRGER Playsuit THAKOON ADDITION

Bustier top JIL SANDER Jacket CHANEL Shorts CLOSED Belt BY MALENE BIRGER Ball rings BJØRG Bangles & ring HERMÈS Watch SHINOLA Earrings LANVIN Socks & sneakers VINTAGE

Long-sleeved top STELLA MCCARTNEY Bodysuit & black bangles LOUIS VUITTON Leather trousers CHANEL Silver necklace with large pendant, bangles & rings HERMÈS Silver rings POMELLATO Silver earrings LANVIN

Shirt MAX MARA Pullover CHANEL Skirt BY MALENE BIRGER Necklace LULUFROST Bracelets & rings with gemstones SABRINA DEHOFF Broad bangle & ring INA BEISSNER Broad bangle with stones ANNA VON BERGMANN Watch SHINOLA Socks FALKE Sneakers & narrow bangle VINTAGE

Pullover STEPHAN BOYA Blouse & ring with large stone BY MALENE BIRGER Trousers COS Bangle with stones & sunglasses & OTHER STORIES Necklace with shark tooth pendant GIVENCHY Necklace with several pendants ANNA VON BERGMANN Narrow & broad rings with stones SABRINA DEHOFF Earrings LANVIN Sneakers & ring with wood VINTAGE

Photography LEO KRUMBACHER Photo assistant MARCEL SIMON SCHMID Styling JOSEPHA RODRIGUEZ Make-up LINDA SIGG @ Nina Klein Hair CAROLIN JARCHOW @ Nina Klein Model NAEMI @ Model Management

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Coat Soaked In Luxury Shirt Minimum Hotpants Replay Shoes Dr. Martens

Top Y.A.S Pullover Vila Jeans LTB Sneakers Kangaroos

Body Y.A.S Shirt dress Vila Denim shirt Lee Jeans LTB Necklace Blond Accessories Sneakers Kangaroos

Leather waistcoat Schott Blouse N端mph Denim shorts Dr. Denim Necklace Blond Accessories Boots Dr. Martens Clutch French Connection

Top & trousers PAUL & JOE SISTER Sweater PENFIELD

Photography Muriel Liebmann Fashion editor & styling Josepha Rodriguez Styling Mimi Le @ Walter Schupfer Management Hair & make-up Marija Kopilas @ Walter Schupfer Management Production Franziska Nellessen @ Edited.de Make-up Maria Comparetto @ Emma Davies Assistants Jason Willheim, Gesa Fligg Model Veronika Vilim @ Wilhelmina All clothes available on www.edited.de

Body Y.A.S Shirt dress Vila Denim shirt Lee Jeans LTB Necklace Blond Accessories Sneakers Kangaroos

Shirt dress Vila Denim shirt Lee Necklace Blond Accessories Sneakers Kangaroos

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Pullover Lightning Bolt Parka Isaora Jogging pants Rascals Sneakers New Balance

Parka Stone Island

Coat Isaora Pants HVRMINN

Shirt Isaora Sweatshirt Jack Henry Sweat pants Adidas Y-3 Sneakers New Balance

Puffer jacket Isaora Jeans Leviâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Red

Photography Gunnar Tufta Styling Shandi Alexander Hair Michael Johnson @ Factory Downtown Model Chris Colton @ Re:Quest Model Management

Sweater Isaora Parka Puma Sweat pants Rascals Sneakers New Balance

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Photography MARC HUTH Photo assistants NICO ERNST, KEN KNOLL Styling nerds & cheerleader ANITA KRIZANOVIC Styling footballer & preppy boys LEONARD ENGEL Styling assistant KRISTIAN GREVE BARELLA Hair & make-up ANNA BOKRANZ, ROLANDO KASPER, JILL KUGEL, KATI MERTSCH Models FELIX N. @Mega Model Agency, JESCO S. @VIVA, JULIA E. @M4, KASSANDRA @M4, KATHRIN Z. @Modelwerk, LUCAS B. @Seeds Management, MARGARYTA C. @VIVA, PHILIPP M. @VIVA, TIM G. @VIVA, THOMMY M. @Modelfabrik, TOBIAS @The Special

FELIX N. Watch D&G Shoes LAGERFELD Socks WILSON

PHILIPP M. Belt RALPH LAUREN Shoes HUGO BOSS Socks WILSON

TIM G. Belt TOMMY HILFIGER Shoes HUMMEL Socks WILSON

Dress GANNI Bracelets KIPLING Socks BURLINGTON Shoes FILIPPA K

Dress IRO Shoes FILIPPA K Stockings FALKE Bracelet SABRINA DEHOFF

Shirt FRENCH CONNECTION Pullover HACKETT LONDON Trousers FRENCH CONNECTION Belt GUCCI Tie CARUSO

THOMMY M. Shirt FRENCH CONNECTION Cardigan FRED PERRY Trousers HACKETT LONDON Tie TOMMY HILFIGER Belt RALPH LAUREN Shoes BABOR

LUCAS B. Shirt FRENCH CONNECTION Pullover HACKETT LONDON Trousers FRENCH CONNECTION Bag FRED PERRY Belt GUCCI Sunglasses POLICE Tie CARUSO Shoes VEJA

JESCO S. Jacket TIGER OF SWEDEN Shirt LAGERFELD Cardigan HACKETT LONDON Trousers TOMMY HILFIGER Belt & shoes LUDWIG REITER Bag & handkerchief TIGER OF SWEDEN

Jacket CONVERSE Top WEEKDAY Shorts BY MALENE BIRGER Stockings FALKE Necklace & earrings AKKESOIR Watch BERSHKA Shoes MICHAEL SONTAG

T-shirt CLOSED Collar KLARA Necklace BOESSERT/SCHORN Glasses LUNETTES KOLLEKTION Cap HENRIK VIBSKOV Backpack JULIAN ZIGERLI

Shirt SOULLAND Trousers CLOSED Bow tie MOODS OF NORWAY Braces STYLIST’S OWN Boxer shorts LOUSY LIVIN Glasses LUNETTES KOLLEKTION Watch POSEIDON Cap SISSI GOETZE Backpack EASTPAK Socks FALKE Shoes VELT

T-shirt CLOSED Collar KLARA Shorts STUDIO LAEND PHUENGKIT Necklace BOESSERT/SCHORN Bracelet SABRINA DEHOFF Glasses LUNETTES KOLLEKTION Cap HENRIK VIBSKOV Backpack JULIAN ZIGERLI Shoes REALITY STUDIO Laptop case SCHMIDTTAKAHASHI

Shirt FRENCH CONNECTION Cardigan FRED PERRY Trousers HACKETT LONDON Tie TOMMY HILFIGER Belt RALPH LAUREN Shoes BABOR

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Photographer MARDEN SMITH Art director EDITH RAW Stylist ATHANASIA NICHOLS Hair RYUTARO Make-up NANNA Models MARK WESTINGHOUSE @New York Model ANA LISBOA @Women Direct

ANA Harness TOPSHOP Top MAJE Skirt KORA RAE Shoes CARLO PAZOLINI Socks TOPSHOP Purse VINTAGE, STYLIST’S OWNS MARK Denim jacket GUESS Blazer TOMMY HILFIGER Jeans REPLAY Pocket square VINTAGE, STYLIST’S OWN Sneakers CONVERSE

Romper CHARLOTTE RONSON Shoes SERGIO ROSSI

Denim jacket GUESS Blazer TOMMY HILFIGER Jeans REPLAY Pocket square VINTAGE, STYLIST’S OWN Sneakers CONVERSE

ANA Jacket LEVI’S Skirt NUDE Shoes RACHEL ZOE Socks TOPSHOP Belt VINTAGE, STYLIST’S OWN MARK Shirt & jeans REPLAY Shoes CONVERSE

Jacket VINTAGE, STYLIST’S OWN Blouse TOPSHOP Bustier KORA RAE Jeans BIG STAR Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Sunglasses LE SPECS

Jacket STYLIST’S OWN Jeans & skirt GUESS Shoes ANDREW KAYLA Sunglasses LE SPECS

TEXTILE & TRENDS — BOSSA, ADANA/TURKEY 57 — 03/2014

TEXT ILONA MARX PHOTO EDUARDO MIERA

Bossa

Exploring New Horizons

Bossa Vice General Manager of Denim and Sportswear Operations, Sedef Uncu Aki, likes to call sustainability a giant elephant, everybody covers another aspect of: “When three people are asked:

what is an elephant? One touches the leg, the other the tail and the third the trunk.” With us she talks about her own idea about sustainability and how it goes together with function and fashion.

What is the most important trend for Autumn/Winter 2015/16? In our collection we have a good balance between vintage-style items and the fashion side, so we offer printed jeans and fashionable coatings because there isn’t just one solution for everybody. The main emphasis right now for Amsterdam’s Kingpins Show was the sustainability aspect. We started using organic cotton in 2005 and after that we worked with all sorts of raw materials and recycled cotton. We also use ecological dyes and chemicals and have lots of projects running within the factories themselves in order to reduce energy usage, water usage; the carbon footprint. We’re basically looking at the manufacturing process in a much more holistic way these days. In fact we are dreaming of producing a 100 percent recycled fabric as the next step in the development. When we discussed it with our Research & Development department, at the meeting of course it was, “No no it’s not possible because the fibre length is delicate and short when you recycle cotton it’s not suitable and it would break during weaving”. But we didn’t give up discussing it and came up with the idea of using a different fibre together with the cotton to support it. We finally hit on polyester, recycled polyester and now we have 100 percent recycled products, which we are really excited about. Another development we are quite proud of is

our performance fabrics, things like a bacterial ﬁnish on the fabric, water repellence and oil repellence. Would you say that this is the new way to go, adding performance features to denim? Yeah we’ve only just started and the demand is actually growing. What features are most important? Well the main thing is that the customers want to be able to wear the same denim all day long: They start their day commuting, sometimes cycling to work, then they are working and afterwards they’re heading back home or are going out directly to meet friends. Their denim should make them feel comfortable and dressed appropriately for all these situations. The look of course is still denim, but with an additional function feature. High performance ﬁbres in the denim improve breathability and help to wick away moisture and sweat more effectively. That makes it more

comfortable to wear in hot weather, and it’s water repellent so that you can wear it in light rain. And if it’s also antibacterial, you don’t need to wash it all the time. How important are stretch materials for the men’s collection in your opinion? For men it’s actually becoming tremendously important. We have already decreased the rigid articles in the men’s collections, and are continuing to do so, because men have really started to appreciate the advantages of stretch fabrics. We now have only about 20 percent rigid, and 80 percent stretch for both men and women. They don’t look like stretch but they are very comfortable. Is it possible to combine these features with the eco trends that you also follow? Yes, we can do it. We can combine organic cotton with those features.

HALL4

16 - 18 SEPT. 2014 - PARIS-NORD VILLEPINTE INTERNATIONAL TRIMMINGS AND COMPONENTS SHOW FOR FASHION AND DESIGN

modamont.com 120

TEXTILE & TRENDS — BOSSA, ADANA/TURKEY

SEDEF UNCU AKI

BOSSA Established in 1951 as Bossa Flour Factory, Bossa today is one of Turkey’s largest integrated textile corporations with three manufacturing facilities located on 650,000 m² of land and 2,600 people working for them.

Born in 1977 in Samsun, Turkey, Sedef Uncu Aki studied Textile Engineering at Istanbul Technical University and got her master degree in the same ﬁeld.

R&D and innovation has strategic importance at Bossa and, besides observation and analysis of global markets and trends, includes the implementation of key ecological projects that promote innovation and sustainability.

In 2003 she got her PhD in Textile Technology & Management from North Carolina State University.

Their product range includes denim as well as non-denim formal and smartwear fabrics with an annual total production capacity of 84.5 million meters in spinning, weaving, dyeing and ﬁnishing.

There are eco dyestuffs and chemicals that we can use for coatings and antibacterial functions. There is also something called eco repel, for water repellence. We are already working on it but we are still in the R&D stage. These things are definitely coming. We also have developed a stay-colour concept called Ultra-Nero, which makes sure that the denim keeps its deep colour even after 40 wash cycles. It’s available in both black and blue. In a way, that makes the material more sustainable too, as you are less likely to need a new pair of jeans because yours look all washed out and shabby. How does it work technically? We use specific chemicals to keep the colour under the fibre.

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Can you tell us something about the Reset collection you have developed? Yes, ‘Reset’ is our sustainable collection: All organic and recycled, using fair and natural indigo as a dyestuff so that we can stay sustainable throughout the whole production process. But besides ‘Reset’ we also have the ‘Trend’ collection. And the two collections don’t overlap? They do actually, because in the beginning people were only asking about recycled products, then realized they didn’t always retain their good look: They became more blurry after washing them for instance and the performance of the ﬁbre was not that good. Therefore the consumers now want recycled jeans providing the same performance as regular ones. That’s why we are trying to improve the performance of the recycled fabric and to make sure that the product doesn’t look cheap after wearing it a couple of times. The trend is toward a regular denim look having recycled credentials at the same time.

Starting at Bossa in 2004, Sedef Uncu Aki has formed the strategy & business development unit there, which she was leading until 2009.

You studied in Harvard and worked in North Carolina? Yes, actually I’m a textile engineer and I studied at a technical university in Istanbul and afterwards did a Master of Business Administration in Turkey. In the States I completed my PhD on textile management and technology and after that I took part in an executive education programme at Harvard Business School whilst simultaneously working in the industry. How did your experiences in the US textile industry inﬂuence your work? What really took my breath away in the States was the mass usage of machinery to reduce manual actions and manpower. When you enter a spinning mill in the US you rarely see people. All the work is mechanized. Just one person is controlling the systems and the laboratory environment. I am not against using people, but this is a more productive way and fewer mistakes happen. Of course we need people in the textile business but that experience helped me to implement mechanization, eliminate unnecessary steps and, in the end, improve productivity. Did you always plan to return to Turkey or were you thinking about remaining in the US to work there? Well, actually I really wanted to come back to Turkey because I wanted to apply my experience to the industry here. It’s always useful to explore new horizons for yourself, but then I deﬁnitely wanted to give something back to the people of my own country. How long have you been working for Bossa? I started working for them in 2004 so it’s been ten years now. It appears to be a long time. But some of the people in the factory have been working for us for 20 years, so ... I still have a way to go! (laughs) Thank you very much for talking to us!

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With expertise in strategy planning & management, business development, investment strategies, innovation, and R&D management she is now holding the position of Vice General Manager of Denim and Sportswear Operations, at Bossa.

WWW.BOSSA.COM.TR

TEXTILES & TRENDS — ÇALIK DENIM, ISTANBUL

TEXT ILONA MARX PHOTO EDUARDO MIERA

Çalik Denim

East Goes West

Hamit Yenici, new General Manager of the Turkish denim manufacturer Çalik Denim since

January, talks about jeans that make you feel happy and innovations that can change the world.

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You are pretty new at Çalik Denim, but you have worked as a product developer for other companies in the past. Yes, I've only been here for a couple of months but my background as product developer really helps me to see the overall picture more clearly. I believe the most important thing for the industry is the product, and if you have the right product, success will come all by itself. That is the key to success.

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Apart from the basics you want to move more into women’s fashion. How do you start to win this notoriously difﬁcult clientele over? (Laughs) There are probably millions of things just waiting to be invented, so our job is just to make it happen. We have to start off by asking what it is, our jeans wearers want, what kind of expectations they have with regard to the fabrics. If you can solve that problem and give them the opportunity to try out new solutions then they will really appreciate innovations. It’s important to not only think of denim as just being ‘denim’. It can be so many different things to different people. Jeans are one of the most comfortable things you can wear, but at the same time can also look incredibly sexy, or smart. They can just make you feel awesome in whatever situation. Our job is simply to make them feel even more comfortable and add some value, which makes you feel that extra bit

more special or different. Just take the mobile phone for example: ten years ago, they were just that: phones. Then they started to integrate cameras into the phone, which changed everything. People began to interact differently, sending each other photos as a means of communication in order to inform each other, to keep up to date. Social media was born. As a result, the camera business has basically gone bankrupt. This is the kind of innovation that adds value to a pre-existing product. The mobile phone industry is now one of the largest electronic industries! So sometimes, simply by adding another function or option to a pre-existing product you can change the world. So, how would this analogy apply to your fabrics? Well, initially, denim simply provides a basic service: it protects you from the weather; it covers your body. But just add some innovation and it can also shape you; make you appear thinner,

more defined, or if you prefer, more masculine, firmer, give your body the ideal silhouette. Feeling more attractive in our own skin is also a key to making us happier in our own lives. So are we talking about body-shaping fabrics here? Yes, everybody has a little something they would like to change or improve on their body. So if your jeans can help you to get closer to your ideal, then all the better. Tell us a little bit about your figureshaping materials. What’s the difference between this material and normal denim? It is softer and gives you more freedom of movement. It’s a kind of innovation that doesn’t need to be exceedingly scientific. Just a tweak makes a difference. Nowadays it’s equally important for men and women to have the ultimate freedom of movement as well as having the best silhouette. At the same

TEXTILES & TRENDS — ÇALIK DENIM, ISTANBUL

ÇALIK DENIM is owned by the Çalik family whose commercial activities date back to the 1930s. With a production plant at Malatya in the eastern part of Turkey, a sales and marketing ofﬁce in Istanbul and agents worldwide, Çalik Denim provides both commercial and innovative fabrics globally, for the menswear and women’s wear segments of the denim and ﬂat fabrics market.

In addition to the global agent network, Çalik Denim has ofﬁces in Treviso in Italy, New York and Hong Kong. Exporting denim fabrics to 38 countries, the company has recently added South America and the Far East to its portfolio as growing markets.

CLIENTS Diesel, Topshop, G-Star, Replay, H&M, Bestseller Group, Citizens of Humanity, Ann Taylor, Gerry Weber, Brax, Hugo Boss

WWW.CALIKDENIM.COM

HAMIT YENICI A textile engineer by education Hamit Yenici has been a well-known and respected denim insider for 24 years.

time they expect a superior robust fabric. When you combine a fabric like that with a great wash, it’s magic! So what are you planning for the future? We deﬁnitely want to provide a denim that gives the wearer more conﬁdence, combining softness with more elasticity, and at the same time with a good solid fabric composition.

57 — 03/2014

What trends will we be seeing in the coming seasons with regards to washes and looks? It will deﬁnitely be going in a more ‘jeany’ direction: more destroyed looks, more striking washes, noticeable twill structures, really looking like genuine denim, yet combined with comfort.

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I heard you are trying to expand into the US market? Perhaps toward California, to get all the fashion brands there. How will you be approaching this new market? We have some sales routes already set up there, but Californian and New York brands are already looking increasingly to Europe. It used to be that the real denim was American. American vintage was key. And they really held that position for a long time. But then some of the New York brands started making fashion denim and many American and even Japanese brands were following what

was happening in Europe in terms of trends. So if we can serve the L.A. market with new ideas that would be a great opportunity. We have sales reps in L.A. and New York so now all we have to do is to create a great collection with some nice new ideas. How do you develop your new ideas? We have a very big R&D team travelling around the world visiting our customers, visiting the fairs and following social media and blogs on what people really need and want. You are very fashion forward with all the brands you already have in your portfolio. Can you name us four trends that you see coming in the next season 15/16? Stretch and performance; the green aspect is quite important, too. It will be a lot about adding different ﬁbers to cotton. BCI cottons will be playing an increasingly important role. With regard to style, the boyfriend ﬁt will be getting stronger again. The destroyed boyfriend cut will be sexier than ever and more appealing. Thank you for talking to us!

Since 1990 Yenici has been working in Product Development and R&D for Isko, the world’s largest producer of denim fabric. Introducing Çalik’s new range of performance denim fabrics, Yenici recently revealed the ‘ingredients’ of a denim that combines function and fashion. Using advanced technology ﬁbers such as Outlast, Miyabi and UHMwPE with denim, ‘Denim Science’ is supposed to offer thermal regulation, strong durability, extraordinary abrasion resistance, and moisture management with natural touch. For the autumn/winter 2015/16 season Çalik Denim introduced advanced colour and construction concepts combined with various stretch and superstretch-materials as well as denims with recycled polyester and Crailar Flax.

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SELECTED

57 — 03/2014

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TEN QUESTIONS FOR — ADRIANO GOLDSCHMIED

TEN QUESTIONS FOR:

Adriano Goldschmied GODFATHER OF DENIM

57 — 03/2014

4 What is your favourite piece in your wardrobe? My favourite piece is honestly not a pair of jeans. It’s a simple T-shirt, with a print of a racing competition. When I was young I won a race with this T-shirt. It felt like it was the T-shirt bringing me luck. And I still have it.

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1 At what age did you know that you wanted to work in the fashion business? Late. Probably when I was 25 or 26 years old. I didn’t even think about fashion before that. I had different interests: I was travelling and doing lots of sports like sailing and racing. I’m not the kind of person who says, „I’ve always wanted to work in fashion ever since I was a child”.

2 What was the moment then that you realised you wanted to work in fashion? I came into fashion by accident in some way. A friend of mine had a club in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a well-known winter resort in northern Italy, and he asked me: “Why don’t you open a store in front of my club?” Because in the evening the people who can’t get into my club could spend money in your shop instead. So I said “OK”. I had no idea about the fashion business when I started in retail. 3 Was there any moment in your life, where you wanted to switch to another branch? Never.

5 What is it that fascinates you about denim? The beauty of denim is its power to reinvent itself. It keeps on ﬁnding a new lease of life and that’s the reason why people love it. 6 What do you think the trend item of the future will be? More comfortable jeans. The consumer is demanding more comfort in order to feel good. In the future it will be very different from the perception that we have of denim today - not a stiff masculine fabric as it is nowadays still to some extent. The future is exactly the opposite. Men will no longer look like carpenters!

7 You moved from Italy to Los Angeles. What is special about L.A.? It is the place where jeans were born. It also embodies the American dream, where new ideas are developed. Otherwise L.A. is also better in terms of vintage and the history of denim. L.A. is also about Hollywood - it has a tremendous communicative power. If you get a pair of jeans on a celebrity for instance, you can promote the new style so rapidly thanks to the internet ... In addition to this L.A. has a very important denim infrastructure with many factories, laundries and suppliers. Within a threemile radius you can make the whole thing from start to ﬁnish. It is very easy to work there. 8 Which is your favourite place in L.A.? My laundry (laughs). 9 Is there anything you would like to change in L.A.? The business mentality. People are very business-orientated and less creative when it comes to visions of the future. 10 What is your wish for the next ten years? I would like to take what I did in L.A. and Italy, and repeat it in Asia.

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24/06/14 09.30