Return to Paradise
Seventies denim may conjure images of “Charlie’s Angels” and bell-bottoms, but Made in Heaven takes its cue from a simpler, more European interpretation of the decade.
Chloe Lonsdale, whose godfather, Tony O’Gorman, launched Made in Heaven in 1969, hopes to chart a new future for the London-based brand with a focus on simple cuts and washes.
“Made in Heaven has a wonderful history and charm, but at the same time, the line is so clean and fresh compared to the distressed denim brands out there,” Lonsdale said in an interview.
The 17-piece line, which Lonsdale relaunched for fall 2005, comprises jeans, miniskirts and HotPants.
The Monaco is a straight-leg jean with a silk tuxedo stripe down the leg, and the Paris is a skinny-leg, cropped jean. The HotPants come in white denim, light blue or indigo washes for spring 2005. Alongside the denim items, the line includes a range of basic cotton T-shirts, bikinis and belts. Prices range from about $86 for a cotton T-shirt to $258 for a pair of Marrakesh denim jeans.
The collection is inspired by styles that Made in Heaven produced in the Seventies, when it was selling at Jean Machine, Chloe’s father Tony Lonsdale’s iconic store on the King’s Road. Lonsdale said the cuts and washes have been updated for today’s market.
“I didn’t want the line to be particularly retro, but rather to incorporate what was good about denim in the Seventies, with hand-finished seams and soft denim,” Lonsdale said.
The jeans, which sell at Harrods and boutiques such as Austique in the U.K., come packaged in a white cardboard box, with an illustration of yellow hills, white clouds and blue skies, reworked from the original sketches that British designer Betty Jackson created for the brand in the Seventies.
Lonsdale, 26, graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art with a fashion design and women’s wear degree. She worked briefly at Nicole Farhi, designing women’s wear before deciding her godfather’s brand was ripe for a relaunch. The line had disappeared in the Eighties when changing consumer demands and a lack of marketing support meant the line gradually fell off consumers’ radar.
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Now Lonsdale sees the line appealing both to those who remember the brand and to a new generation of customers.
“Our jeans appeal to a more sophisticated customer, as they have a slightly higher waist, with our lowest rise 22 centimeters [8.5 inches], which means a flattering fit, ” Lonsdale said.
While she would not reveal sales figures, Lonsdale said she is in discussions with U.S. retailers and hopes to launch the line for fall 2006 in the U.S.
“We had the opportunity to take the line to the U.S. for this spring, but as this is a small company where everything from sales to distribution is done in-house; I wanted to wait until we were really ready,” Lonsdale said.
Though Lonsdale may be taking her time now, she is thinking big with regard to the future.
“The brand really lends itself to a whole lifestyle,” she said. “There are so many possibilities — cosmetics, perfume, homeware — but I want to take my time and do it right.”
— Nina Jones
Vincent Commits to Cyn
Cynthia Vincent, the Los Angeles-based designer behind Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent, is adding an avenue of opportunity next spring with a denim brand called Cyn.
The new line represents Vincent’s first foray into the premium denim market, which has recently seen the arrivals of designers such as Zac Posen and Imitation of Christ’s Tara Subkoff.
Despite the onslaught of high-end denim brands in a competitive sector, Vincent forecasts growth prospects. After the start of Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent two years ago, Vincent realized that premium denim has grown to become its own category. She believes a separate brand will allow her denim and chambray pieces to stand out from the crowd.
Unlike Posen and Subkoff, who partnered with Seven For All Mankind and Blue Concept, respectively, Vincent is launching her jeans business on her own. She said the challenges lie in mastering the technical aspects of working with denim and executing her vision for tailored looks.
“Obviously, we’re learning,” she said.
Working on Cyn with Vincent is James Abbott, who has designed denim for Katherine Hamnett and joined the company last summer as Cyn’s head denim designer.
“We want to be a fashion denim collection as opposed to another jeans line,” Abbott said.
To that end, a lilac denim enhanced with gold Lurex stitching has become one of its bestsellers.
Retailers have faith in Vincent. For Macy’s West, which carries Twelfth Street in four doors and plans to launch Cyn next spring in its Union Square flagship in San Francisco, the new label hit all the right trends. In addition to the assortment of camp shorts and shorts that fall above the knee, Cyn also offers jeans with high waists and 9- to 11-oz. stretch and rigid denim, said Denise Lawson-Curry, a vice president at Macy’s West.
“They also offer chambray, which looks great,” Lawson-Curry said via e-mail. “Their price points and their look are most comparable to Notify — very forward, very cleaned up.”
Other retailers who have ordered the line include American Rag Cie, Nordstrom and Tracey Ross.
Cyn’s inaugural collection will offer 22 styles, including shirtdresses in chambray or shirting fabric, waistcoats, fitted jackets and jeans with straight, skinny and trouser silhouettes. Vincent said she envisions that her jeans would be hung rather than folded and stacked.
“It’s ultimately very refined …very hand-done,” she said.
Although Vincent didn’t project first-year sales for Cyn, she said it has the potential to eclipse the main label, which tallies $12 million in annual wholesale sales through 350 accounts. That’s primarily because the denim business has a larger customer base than designer clothing and thrives on reorders for popular items that can be produced for more than one season, she said.
The company is offering Cyn first to existing accounts and also targeting denim-specific shops. Wholesale prices range from $58 to $68 for shirts, $59 to $78 for skirts, $61 to $89 for shorts, $64 to $134 for jeans, $79 to $89 for dresses and $110 to $135 for jackets.
— Khanh T.L. Tran
Scanning the Perfect Fit
It’s not enough for jeans to look smart — the fit must be intelligent. And now Bodymetrics, a London-based firm, has unveiled scanning technology that takes the exact measurements of a customer’s figure in order to create a pair of tailor-made jeans.
“We are inventing a new category of luxury,” said Suran Goonatilake, chairman and founder of Bodymetrics. Its “pod” — a white capsule resembling an MRI scanner — recently made its denim debut at Paris’ Bon Marché department store. An upgraded version is also expected to bow in Selfridges’ denim department in the U.K. on Friday after a test there last year.
The firm hopes to implant its Bodymetrics pods in leading department stores in the U.S. and Japan, billing it as fashion’s technology of the future. To be sure, entering the Bodymetrics pod takes the fitting room experience to a futuristic level. Once undressed, customers stand in a pitch-black chamber in an upright position while lights flash for eight seconds. On completion, a consultant assists customers in their choice of styles and finishing touches.
For leg shape, clients can choose among boot-cut, straight-leg or drainpipe jeans. Customers may then decide on the height of the waist (low-rise, mid-waist or high-rise), the color of the wash, the percentage of spandex and even detailing such as pocket designs or monograms. The finished Bodymetrics jeans, which retail for about 250 euros, or $294 at current exchange, are then sent directly to the client’s doorstep within two to four weeks.
“It’s the first form of mass couture,” said Goonatilake, who dreamed up the concept after preparing his PhD on artificial intelligence. “The customer is the center of the universe. There are no sizes as sizes are irrelevant. It is your body shape that counts.”
Already, Bodymetrics has teamed with designer denim labels such as Los Angeles-based Serfontaine to create a line of Serfontaine jeans by Bodymetrics retailing for around 450 euros, or $530. Goonatilake expects collaborations with other denim designers to be another element to his business.
Bodymetrics next year plans to introduce other product ranges such as men’s and women’s luxury suits before going more mass. “We want to create a scaled-back version for high street fashion,” Goonatilake said. The new version would allow fast-fashion customers to virtually try on jeans from existing styles within the store.
— Emilie Marsh