A new breed of supercool but dollar-conscious denim is giving the premium category a run for its money.
“The premium market had gone too far and was overcharging,” according to Alexander Graah, co-owner and designer behind the fledging Göteborg, Sweden, denim label Dr. Denim Jeansmakers. Dr. Denim’s medicine certainly goes down easily; skinny styles for women average around 77 euros, or $95 at current exchange. “At first, retailers thought we were crazy, but then they realized there’s a huge market for it.”
That is, a market for low-budget blues with a high fashion quotient. It seems even the most well-heeled jeans fiend, accustomed to spending a pretty penny on premium, does not shy away from more affordable labels. “The market is very advanced here,” asserts Graah. To be sure, in Scandinavia, denim-clad hipsters hunt for cutting-edge designs and quirky styles as much as brand names.
“Scandinavia has a long denim history, and generally premium denim labels are cheaper than high-end brands in Italy, France and England,” says Jan Busch Carlsen, owner of Copenhagen’s CPH Vision, one of Europe’s most avant-garde trade fairs. Sweden’s Cheap Monday, for example, is as daringly cheap—average styles retail for about 45 euros, or $55—as it is conceptual. The Eiffel Tower, expected to be a bestseller next winter, has a towering waistline that nearly reaches the bust.
“We noticed that there wasn’t a single decent brand that made cheaper jeans,” notes Orjan Andersson, designer behind the Cheap Monday label that made its mark in Europe with ultraslim fits and very stretchy denim. He should know. Andersson is also the owner of Stockholm’s Weekday, a contemporary fashion store that sells denim brands such as Edwin and Acne Jeans, among others.
“Customers still want premium, but they are buying brands like Cheap Monday to go along with their selection,” he says.
This is an excerpt from an article in tomorrow’s WWD Fast, a publication of WWD available to subscribers.