AN EMPIRE STATE OF STYLE
Meet the designers and merchants who are making New York a red-hot centre for menswear again
JEAN SHOP
Mr Eric Goldstein
Jean Shop has a simple objective: to make the best jeans on the market. Co-founder Mr Goldstein had 20 years’ experience with Ralph Lauren RRL and Gap before starting to produce his own designs using carefully sourced Japanese selvedge denim. They are sewn in California and hand-finished in New York, often by Mr Goldstein himself, who is an expert in washing, dyeing and finishing.
Describe a typical day.
“My office is just beneath the store on Crosby Street in SoHo. I like to be around people and product so I pinball between the store upstairs and the development office downstairs. I can be working on something downstairs and bring it up to ask for an opinion – that’s priceless.”
Who is your typical customer?
“He’s a 25- to 38-year-old guy who wants great quality product rather than disposable fashion. Raw denim starts off feeling really stiff and uncomfortable. But our customer keeps coming back year after year because the jeans he bought last year now fit him like a glove. But, whereas he used to wear them on a Saturday night out, now they are a Sunday afternoon jean, so he needs a new Saturday night pair. There’s a life cycle to a pair of jeans. And each pair is a work of art – of your art. Every pair tells a story.”