Double Eleven to shake up denim market
loading...
London - Nathan Bogle, co-founder of Rag & Bone, is looking to shake up the denim industry with his menswear brand, Double Eleven, which makes its collections from reclaimed denims, organic cottons and vintage military goods.
The LA-based menswear label has been inspired by the World War II-era British manufacturing utility schemes, which saw the British rationing raw materials such as wool and cotton, as leather couldn’t be imported that led to the elimination of excess materials, a concept that Bogle wants to reintroduce with his limited-run collections.
The aim of the label is to utilise local deadstock textiles to create stylish menswear jeans in slim and straight cuts. Each piece is made using 100 percent locally reclaimed Japanese, Italian and American fabrics, with each pair designed, cut, sewn, and finished within a 15-mile radius of Los Angeles, ensuring the smallest possible carbon footprint, which is hopes can demonstrate that utility can be both “smart and stylish” as well as affordable, as prices for the denim start at 125 dollars.
“It all started in a factory staring at a mountain of discarded fabric remnants, and a realisation there must be a better way to create clothes without creating so much waste and wasting so much energy,” said Bogle via the brand’s Instagram page. “More than simply turning excess in product I knew it meant stripping down the entire process - from sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, even to communication and packaging.”
The current collection features five ‘slim’ styles, each one made in units of 100, as well as two ‘straight’ cut jeans in indigo and charcoal. Each pair of jeans states colour, material content, denim used, as well as the mill such as Candiani (Italy), Kurabo, Kaihara, Kuroi (Japan), and Cone (USA), and how many pieces are left to show transparency within its design, distribution and supply chain.
The denim might originate from Japan, Italy or elsewhere in the US, however, Double Eleven reclaims it all in downtown Los Angeles, which it states means it can “eliminate a vast majority of the traditional carbon footprint normally associated with the making of clothing and still offer a great pair of jeans”.
Rag & Bone co-founder Nathan Bogle launches sustainable menswear brand Double Eleven
By using deadstock fabrics the label also eliminates the thousands of litres of water and kilowatt hours of human and machine energy expended in the making of virgin denim. The brand states that 5,000 litres of water is used to grow enough cotton to make 1 pair of jeans, that’s 4.5 years of drinking water for 1 human, which it has removed from the making of its denim line using reclaimed fabrics.
The label also believes that its “always limited” approach also offers the consumers something a little different, as shoppers will get jeans never made from the same denim, “jeans are a very individual thing and our limited runs help keep your pair even more unique,” states the brand. New limited runs of jeans are launched every few months, with each batch individually number.
Double Eleven is also expanding its collections to include menswear basics such as denim shirts, using a deadstock Japanese Chambray they found in a warehouse in downtown LA, organic cotton T-shirts, which have been washed with a plant enzyme to give a vintage finish to the cotton, and for spring 2017 there will be an Army green shirt jacket made from original 1970’s military deadstock.
While denim starts at 125 dollars, knits and T-shirts will range from 25 to 45 dollars, shirts will be priced at 110 dollars, chinos will retail for 124 dollars and outerwear will range from 160 to 200 dollars.
Bogle added: “I wanted to create a contemporary, accessible, core line of utility garments, like jeans, tees, shirts, jackets etc. without any compromise to quality or durability. I wanted to make things that had tiny carbon footprints and addressed our immediate need to reduce our environmental impact in the apparel industry. And I wanted it to be priced accessibly.
“At Double Eleven we are able to eliminate a vast majority of the traditional footprint and still offer great clothes at great prices with the belief that in the right set off hands, sustainability and simplicity make the perfect pair.”
Images: Double Eleven website