Behind the Design: Leather, Wool and Denim
Behind the Design: Leather, Wool and Denim
A piece starts long before the sewing room. It starts with a question about the cloth.
Where a design begins
People imagine design as a picture. Most of it is decisions. Which hide. Which weight. Which color, and which mill can make it. Which sewing room will make the piece best. Each answer changes the one after it.
Here is how three of those decisions played out, in leather, wool and denim.
Leather: a tan of its own
For the 1933 pre-war moto jacket, I worked with Horween in Chicago on a specific tea dyed tan for the horsehide. Then came the hardware, and every piece of it was made custom for Black Bear Brand: fifteen hand poured solid brass studs made in the USA and vintage Talon zippers made in Japan. Then the lining, black Cupra made in Japan. Each jacket takes around seven months to make.
The Spirit Bear ghost white horsehide took more than a year to get right. The tan sits under the white and comes through with wear.
Wool: a green that did not exist
The peacoat began as my own vintage peacoat, worn for over a decade. The shape was right, so the design work went into the cloth and the details. The Black Bear Brand Peacoat is 14.7oz wool produced for Black Bear Brand in the Aichi-Ichinomiya area of Japan, with anchor buttons made in Japan and a Cupra lining.
Then came the hunter green. It is a custom color created with the mill for Black Bear Brand. The Hunter Green Peacoat is the same 14.7oz weight, lined in black Cupra made in Japan.
Denim: cut for a real life
The Indigo Cowboy Jeans answer a simple question. Where does a big buckle go? The front pocket is shaped to hold it. The cowboy cut comes with a 40 inch inseam, long enough to stack on a boot. The back pockets are tear drops, and the coin pocket is the same shape.
The WINTER Washed Denim Chore Coat was drawn from a vintage chore coat I wore for decades on adventures around the world, before I brought Black Bear Brand back. I kept everything I loved about it and worked out everything I wanted to change. The WINTER WASH came from the denim jacket I wore for over a decade, taken to our friends, the masters of denim in Okayama. Each coat is distressed by hand, one by one.
The answer is always the same
Every decision comes back to one standard. Make the piece I would love to wear, from the best cloth I can find, in the room that makes it best.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
1933 Pre-War Moto Jacket in Horween Horsehide
Hunter Green Black Bear Brand Peacoat
WINTER Washed Denim Chore Coat
Related Reading
The Ghost White Spirit Bear Western Horween Horsehide Jacket