J Brand (Q3153)
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American denim clothing company
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | J Brand |
American denim clothing company |
Statements
J Brand canceled its presentation this season due to the coronavirus pandemic. In these extenuating circumstances, Vogue Runway has made an exception to its policy and is writing about this collection via photos and remote interviews.It’s often said that we only wear a fraction of the clothes hanging in our closets. As we complete our fourth week of self-isolation here in New York, that number is probably getting a lot closer to 0%. Why bother putting a look together when no one’s going to see you, or when your entire day consists of lounging on the couch? Most of us are rotating through our comfiest, coziest pieces—sweatshirts, leggings, the odd Zoom-appropriate blouse. We haven’t needed handbags or shoes for weeks, nor have we had much use for denim. The thought of zipping into skinny jeans or breaking in a vintage pair while you work at the kitchen table sounds pretty terrible; if ever there was a time to embrace athleisure and sweats, this is it.As such, it’s both refreshing and vaguely disorienting to flip through J Brand’s fall 2020 collection. On one hand, denim lovers will be happy to daydream about how they’ll wear those ivory flares or acid-wash stovepipes in August or September, when the shelter-in-place orders have presumably lifted (let’s hope); on the other, it’s difficult for many of us to picture what things will look like even a week from now, let alone four months. But it seems inevitable that our time spent alone and indoors will take a dramatic toll on what we choose to wear after society returns to “normal.” Will we continue to crave comfort and protection, or will we embrace a polished, utterly put-together look, like the one J Brand is putting forth?J Brand’s innovation center chief operating officer Masaaki Matsubara said they were looking to both grunge and minimalism for inspiration, and some looks collapsed both vibes: shredded jeans with a sleek leather blazer, for instance, or a tapered charcoal pair with a little ribbed tank. Those mash-ups reflected how the denim market has come to transcend trends: It isn’t unusual to see ice-wash ’80s jeans, ’70s bell-bottoms, and ’00s skinnies in the same collection or on the same New York street. Perhaps that’s why the bare, almost trend-less simplicity of the ’90s registered as more of a surprise here: A few looks were strikingly no-frills, like a crisp button-down and straight-leg jeans, or a black turtleneck tucked into black flares.
The effect for both was of strength and ready-for-anything competence, but not at the expense of ease; that balance might feel even more resonant in our post-quarantine reality, whenever that may be.
13 April 2020
Denim has a reputation as one of fashion’s dirtiest industries, from the amount of water required to grow enough cotton for a single pair of jeans (estimated at over 1,000 gallons) to the washes and chemicals used to treat the fabric. There’s also the issue of synthetics like polyester, elastane, and Lycra replacing cotton and natural fibers, and the difficulties of recycling denim that includes those blended fibers or stretch. If fixing all of that sounds daunting, J Brand makes it look pretty easy: In the past few seasons, the company has greatly reduced its use of bleach, turned recycled denim scraps into housing insulation, and created proprietary washing techniques that use 90% less water. The company has even developed its own alternative to pumice stones, which have traditionally been used to distress and soften jeans. The mining of pumice has a massive carbon footprint, and as the stones disintegrate the dust particles are often inhaled by workers or dumped into rivers. Their alternative resists that breakdown and can be reused over and over.With all of that in mind, J Brand boldly called its spring 2020 collection “the world’s most sustainable premium denim to date.” That mostly applied to the blue jeans on display in the showroom; they’re still figuring out how to produce ivory and off-white jeans without using any bleach. The indigo flares and cropped straight-legs with the “sustainable” tag were made mostly of cotton and utilize those low-waste washing processes.Eventually all of the above will be considered standard practice for denim companies, and we’ll be able to refocus our attention back to design. On that note, J Brand is embracing wider legs and longer lengths for 2020: The opening pair had a generous flared proportion with a trouser hem, while a boot-cut jean had a slimmer, leaner cut. Both came in the label’s “real-life rigid” denim, which combined 98% cotton with just a touch of stretch. They’re meant to skim over your shoes, a hint that the days of above-the-ankle crops are coming to an end. The other big news for J Brand was its introduction of “inclusive sizing,” spanning sizes 33 to 38. The patternmakers didn’t just build out the sizes of their current selection but cut new patterns and held multiple fittings to perfect each style. It should see the brand starting 2020 off on the right foot.
31 October 2019
Last week, J Brand released a five-piece collaboration withKozaburo Akasada, and it might go down as one of the year’s least-likely pairings. J Brand is a 15-year-old, widely recognized Los Angeles denim brand known for skinny jeans; Kozaburo hails from Japan and is one of menswear’s most exciting and unconventional designers. Their common ground is denim—Kozaburo’s own “3-D” flares and selvedge trousers have a cult following—and both brands are committed to sustainability. The J Brand x Kozaburo capsule featured multi-panel jeans made from repurposed scraps, old samples, and vintage denim from J Brand’s archive, and the results were so good, a few styles have already sold out.The jeans are also chemical-free, which mirrors the sustainable efforts J Brand is making in its main line. Cutting out bleach and reducing its overall water use are central to the company’s goal to become “fully sustainable” by 2020. It’s getting close: Fall 2019 was about 50 percent sustainable—on the women’s side, that is. The men’s collection is apparently already at 100 percent. The disparity can be mostly attributed to the greater assortment of washes for women; J Brand’s VP of global marketing, Mary Peffer, explained that white and off-white jeans are particularly difficult to achieve without bleach, which always requires a significant amount of water. Fall’s ivory denim motorcycle jacket and matching exposed-fly skinnies will still be irresistible to many J Brand fans, but they can at least balance their impact with the label’s newest development: its first-ever unisex jean, a dark-rinse selvedge pair in a straight, easy fit.
28 March 2019
At J Brand’s presentation on Thursday, Jaclyn Jablonski was on hand to model its most popular jeans, a wide-leg cropped style by the name of Joan. At first glance, it looked a lot like the other Joans we’ve seen at J Brand over the last few seasons, albeit in a new pale-blue wash. Upon closer inspection, though, Jablonski’s jeans were also covered in tiny white flecks, as if they’d been speckled with bleach. J Brand’s innovation team didn’t use that toxic chemical though—they used baby powder. Wait, what? How did it get pressed into the jeans? Will it wash out? They wouldn’t share exactly how the technology worked, which of course made it all the more intriguing.Using powder instead of bleach is just one way J Brand is aiming to become more sustainable. In the Spring 2019 collection, 50 percent of the denim was produced sustainably, whether that meant using less water (up to 99 percent less, to be precise) or incorporating recycled cotton and hardware. By 2020, J Brand hopes to be fully sustainable, an ambitious goal for any company—but especially for a denim company. (Denim is notorious for its high water use.) Flipping through the racks, it was impossible to discern any differences between the sustainable jeans and the “regular” ones, which is good news for denim heads who are skeptical about changes in quality. Also newsworthy: J Brand’s reissued denim button-downs, described as the ideal cut, weight, and fit. Jablonski wore hers with the baby-powdered jeans, and the opening look included a dark-rinse version with matching skinnies. Consider it a relaxed take on the Canadian tuxedo.Next year, J Brand will venture much further into capital-Ffashion territory thanks to a collaboration with Kozaburo Akasaka, who picked up a Special Prize in the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers this year. He’s bringing his commitment to upcycling to the project, too, and dug through J Brand’s archives to repurpose denim from as early as 2005, when the company launched. A first look at the prototypes revealed seriously experimental, Frankenstein-ed denim, exposed zippers, and flared legs; you’ll have to watch this space to see the full collection in early 2019.
5 November 2018
Premium denim brands are still trying to keep up with the vintage-jean revival—see J Brand’s high-rise, wide-leg, non-stretch jeans from last season—but the novelty jean of the mid-’00s might just be making a comeback. How else to explain the holographic skinnies hanging in the showroom this morning, or the stovepipes with exposed zippers bisecting each leg, or the black cropped flares with sheer organza panels? Styled with familiar T-shirts, leather jackets, and faux fur bombers, the jeans were surprising, but not too extra. They could attract even the staunchest vintage fans.It helps that J Brand tapped Jacquelyn Jablonski to model those statement styles; she looks singularly cool in silver-painted skinnies, a turtleneck, and vintage Dr. Martens. Her involvement extends beyond the lookbook, too: She was present at the appointments, and in lieu of staging a formal presentation with models and a custom set, J Brand donated that money to Jablonski’s charity, Autism Tomorrow.Another feel-good takeaway from this collection was J Brand’s first capsule of sustainable jeans, which were made using 90 percent less water than a standard pair. (Disturbing fact: On average, it takes 1,800 gallons to make a single pair of jeans.) The company is vowing to produce more and more of its collections that way, so in a few years’ time, every jean will have a dramatically lower impact.
26 March 2018
J Brand made its first skinny jean in 2005. The style has come to symbolize early- and mid-’00s fashion; it felt radical at the time, compared with the boot cuts and flares other denim labels were doing. J Brand’s skinnies had a low-rise, legging-y shape, and came in a sculpting, suck-you-in stretch denim—surely this trend wouldn’t last!More than a decade later, skinnies are still a top seller for J Brand, but the Spring ’18 collection looked quite a bit different. The new jeans are rigid, non-stretch, and high-rise, with slouchy or easy-fitting silhouettes. “Stretch” is practically a dirty word these days, and there’s a good chance many of J Brand’s customers have picked up a pair of vintage Levi’s or Re/Dones in the past year or two. So instead of relying on novelty details or wild colors to stay relevant, they stripped things back with simpler, more forgiving jeans in of-the-moment shapes, like cropped wide-legs, stovepipes, and cuffed bell-bottoms. A few came in sandy pink or a “macadamia nut” wash, which offered a softer alternative to white denim, and the belted, pleat-front denim trousers looked cool, too. The best part about statement jeans like these? They’re simple to style. As J Brand suggests in the lookbook, just throw on a T-shirt and go.
18 October 2017
Power dressing is a big theme for Fall ’17, but it doesn’t just apply to suits. At J Brand’s presentation, there was a sense of power and strength in the rich jewel tones—often worn head to toe—and the relatively pared-back, no-fuss denim silhouettes. Novelty has defined J Brand’s past few collections (along with those of most denim labels) but this time the designers swapped pooling flares, pastel jeans, and tie-dye washes for a more elegant look. As it turns out, those pieces felt a little more work-appropriate, too, which may be important to some shoppers. For the denimheads, the most fashion-forward styles were a pair of lace-trimmed, wax-coated baby flares, and the new “Joan,” a sleek wide-leg you could wear with flats.Great denim aside, it was hard not to gravitate toward the velvet looks. Fall marks the first time J Brand has used velvet in ready-to-wear—not just for jeans—with slinky button-downs, slip dresses, and camisoles in lustrous shades of aubergine and navy. An emerald velvet slip dress styled with a shearling jacket in the same color would make a cool and un-precious evening look, ditto the navy velvet suit, which might pass as a “power suit” in a particularly cool office.
24 March 2017
Los Angeles–based J Brand has done some zigging and zagging since it launched a dozen years ago. Once the king of the skinny jean, J Brand expanded its mandate to include high-end sportswear; then, when that didn’t take, it pivoted to focus on creating a wardrobe of everyday staples. All along, it is brisk sales of denim that have kept the J Brand coffers full. This season, the label decided to put its mouth where the money is, directing the creative energies of its design team to giving denim go-tos a bit of fashion razzle-dazzle.If you were in search of conclusive proof that we’ve exited the era where one key jean silhouette rules the street, this collection provided it. There were skinnies and baggy boyfriend cuts and wide-legs with pooling hems and cropped flares and long culottes. All the styles were elaborated by some technical fuss—patchwork details, distressing, shadow dye, bleaching. The aim, overall, was to rethink jeans not as a basic but as a wardrobe item with its own distinctive personality. That effect was achieved most successfully in the collection’s range of brightly colored denim pieces—not just jeans but also skirts and shorts and jackets, the latter of which were offered in both a boxy shape and a more fitted version that featured patchwork detailing in back. This coming spring is going to be all about bold color; with these items, J Brand did a nice job of providing young women with an accessible way to wear the trend. Which, from a fashion perspective, is really all J Brand needs to do.
21 October 2016
There’s been a lot of talk of late about skinny jeans—about how it’s the denim trend that refuses to die. Mom jeans, distressed jeans, boyfriend jeans, flares long and cropped—women duly add them to their denim wardrobe, and keep on wearing their stovepipes in the meantime. Why? Mary Bruno, the head of design at J Brand, has responded to her clientele’s demand for silhouette variation, not with befuddlement but with deference. “It sort of reminds me of the ’90s, when there were all these denim brands doing different things,” she said at an appointment to view the new J Brand collection this afternoon. “It wasn’t about just one look.”With that in mind, J Brand’s ’90s-inflected collection traversed a wide range of denim silhouettes, from über-wide-leg flares to stretchy ultra-skinnies updated courtesy of ripped knees and stepped, distressed hems. The ’90s nod was elaborated via military-inspired and motorcycle jackets with roomy shoulders and sleeves, and reiterations of such classics of the decade as the cold-shoulder top, the turtleneck, and velvet flares that hearkened back to the days ofTom FordatGucci. Bruno was on to something here—her J Brand girl may be polyamorous in her denim tastes, but she always wears the same streetwise attitude.
1 April 2016
The vintage Levi’s revival currently under way has got premium denim-makers in a bit of a pickle. Do you try to propose an alternative look or offer new jeans that accord with the vintage vibe? J Brand did a bit of both this season, in a collection of denim and ready-to-wear that emphasized time-tested silhouettes. Most of the innovation was in the materials: Head of design Mary Bruno did yeoman’s work developing ultra-lightweight denims and dyeing and distressing gossamer cotton-linen blends to look like denim, such that J Brand may indeed find itself with a monopoly on jeans suitable for the dog days of summer. Bruno’s other key proposals were to offer a trouser jean, which looked particularly natty in optical white, and indigo-dyed stretch denim made in vaguely ’70s-ish swimwear shapes. She wasn’t trying to reset anyone’s denim agenda here; this collection was more about proposing solutions for women who want to keep wearing the denim they already like when it gets really hot. That’s enough to make a market, not so much to make news.
22 October 2015
For its first-ever Pre-Fall collection, J Brand kept things straightforward. For the most part, creative director Donald Oliver followed the same brief that he laid out for Spring: Create a bunch of urbane pieces, refined in their detail, that could be dressed up and/or worn with J Brand jeans. Indeed, quite a lot felt familiar here, including the separates done in a neoprene-like fabric, and the preponderance of biker jackets (the best of which, in a khaki corrugated cotton, doubled as a coat with a zip-off hem). The tailoring was classy, with a bit of a tuxedo accent that also came through in the bibbed shirting. Jeans—a key feature, of course—were either slightly baggy or second-skin, with a new sateen finish. It was all quite commercial, very much the point of a Pre-Fall collection. A little more experimentation will be welcome come the Fall 2014 season.
12 December 2013
Negotiating the transition from denim brand to ready-to-wear is tricky business, to say the least. J Brand is managing its evolution very well: The label's new ready-to-wear collection was filled with sophisticated, wearable, nicely finessed clothes. But this collection did suggest that the old two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance has been going on Chez J; as creative director Donald Oliver himself noted today, the emphasis here was on creating strong individual pieces that could pair back to the jeans. Hardly the statement of ready-to-wear intent we saw last season, but Oliver and his team fulfilled the new brief, turning out sharp-looking biker jackets and ever-so-slightly slouched trousers, not to mention some natty tailored looks, like a sheer-back blazer, and shirting with a T-shirt's casual mien. The items in a nautical stripe made a particular impact, while the bikers showed off—once more—Oliver's refined sense of detail. An indigo leather jacket, for instance, featured denim lapels, a concealed zip, and traditional biker jacket quilting on the back; none of this read as novelty for novelty's sake. You could imagine a woman liking that jacket for a long time. Meanwhile, the real emphasis today did seem to be on the jeans. There were new fits—a slimmer boyfriend, for instance—and a new material, developed from hosiery tech, that made for a yet more legginglike denim. And there was also a plethora of denim shorts, ranging from tap-pant tiny to hip-hop baggy. They'll fly at retail.
28 October 2013
Denim megalith J Brand quietly launched its apparel line a year ago with a small capsule collection. This season, presenting for the first time, the brand showed its muscle. Simply put, this collection proved what a company with a robust bank account can do, provided it's guided by a talent as savvy as J Brand creative director Donald Oliver. At today's presentation, Oliver made two points that bear repeating: First, he asserted that the J Brand woman, as he sees her, wants to look "relevant," but not "trendy"; second, he explained that his design team starts each collection thinking about denim. The two points speak to the same thing, actually. The emphasis on denim was reflected in the new collection by its focus on staple pieces—not just jeans, but all kinds of items that can be used adaptively through a wardrobe. Nothing here was terribly challenging, but Oliver's reinterpretation of familiar silhouettes was fresh and incontrovertibly luxe. To wit, look no further than his terrific navy shearling biker jacket, updated by its unexpected color and material, and the myriad small ways Oliver had reshaped the classic cut. And thus, by starting with denim—or, more broadly, with the idea of working with wardrobe fundamentals—Oliver had arrived at precisely the spot he'd been wanting to go, "relevant" but not "trendy."That strategy just kept working. Legging-skinny jeans were tricked out with dressy coatings. Track pants were turned out in boiled wool and leather. The basic black pant got a new, sculpturally tailored shape. Jackets were shorn of their collars or trimmed in satin, while the tuxedo was reimagined as a lean jumpsuit, or a vest made from mud satin and ponyskin. Individually, these pieces felt special; as a whole, the collection was accessible yet terribly urbane. Women won't just be buying these clothes come fall; they'll be wearing the hell out of them, too.
5 February 2013