It's an exchange that isn't only taking place in the confines of 3x1, Mr. Morrison's specialty store in New York, but throughout the denim industry. Both small shops and major brands like Levi's are attempting to capitalize on a slice of the market looking for made-to-measure.
While the bulk of Mr. Morrison's business is wholesale—Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman and upscale retailers all over the world sell 3x1 brand jeans for men and women off the rack—about half of the business in his SoHo location comes from custom work. Clients can simply choose a fabric from the rolls of denim suspended from the walls and specify one of six fits ($525 to $750), or they can opt for a bespoke process ($1,200 for the first pair; $525 to $750 for subsequent ones)—both completed in the in-store factory, a hive of seamstresses sitting inside a glass cube. The majority of Mr. Morrison's custom-buyers are male. "Historically nine out of 10 custom orders are men but more recently we've been seeing an uptick on the women's end," he said.
Ordering customized jeans isn't unlike having a pair of trousers made for a suit: There are fittings, a pattern is drawn, the cloth is cut into pieces and finally sewn into pants. But denim can be trickier than other fabrics. Ranging in weight from 5 to 32 ounces per yard, it continues to evolve well after its been sewn. Mr. Morrison's staff is not just tailoring, they're laying a foundation for a fabric that will adjust to the wearer's body.
For Mr. Morrison, who has been in the denim business for 16 years (he started the brands Paper Denim & Cloth and Earnest Sewn), the cut matters but the denim itself is key. "You realize that a measurement is just a number and it's not going to articulate how a fabric is going to feel on your body," he said. Mr. Morrison's shop carries 320 denims—some as thin as an oxford shirt, others as thick as a carpet. He mails swatches of new fabric arrivals to his regular customers every week.
Like most players in the premium-denim game, Mr. Morrison worships at the altar of selvage, the high-quality, old-school denim made on small-scale shuttle looms. This material was the standard back when denim was workwear, before jeans went mainstream in the 1960s. Selvage was all but extinct in the U.S. by the 1980s. Shuttle-loom denim has been revived in Japan, where much of the best selvage denim can be found (Italy, the U.S. and Turkey are also key producers).
by John Ortved, WSJ | Read more:
Image: Daniel Bernauer/3x1
