Welcome to We Are The Market, a news, style and fashion-centric culture blog brought to you by fashion branding consultancy BPMW. Our eagle eyes are fixed on the progressive, footwear, streetwear and contemporary markets and we're rounding up what's hot right now, right here.
London Fashion Week is just getting underway and there’s some great independent menswear design talent showcasing their S/S 2010 collections there in the coming days… We’ve got some amazing preview pics from some of our favorite designers, created by Fashion 156, after the jump. Click here for the full catwalk schedule.
Thom Browne is establishing two new ranges that will be priced 30 to 40 percent lower than his fashion-forward runway offerings, making him the latest men’s designer to adopt a strategic focus on lower prices and repositioned staples — as Tim Hamilton, Duckie Brown and others have also done recently. The new Thom Browne ranges, launching for spring 2010, do not have distinct labels but are known unofficially as Thom Browne “classics” and Thom Browne “red/white/blue.” Initiating with a few styles, they are expected to grow to 50 percent of the collection and broaden the market for the brand.
Classics includes carryovers such as Browne’s signature gray wool suit and white cotton oxford, as well as a navy coat with gold buttons, khaki trousers in spring and gray wool trousers in fall. Red/white/blue consists of preppy styles far less outré than Browne’s runway fare, which has been known for extreme proportions, women’s wear influences and fetishy details. The range includes foul-weather outerwear, blazers, trousers, shirts, cardigans, crewnecks and polos. T-shirts and swim trunks will be offered for summer. “The philosophy and the make of the collection will be the same, but just broader,” Browne said. “It will still be for that Thom Browne guy, but now that guy will have things to wear everyday for every occasion.” (WWD)
New York’s finest, king of collaboration, cool guy brand Supreme (remember Jeff Koons, Bad Brains, the ironic Budweiser collection and yes, Kermit the Frog shot by Terry Richardson?) is previewing its A/W 2009 collection online now and we’re particularly fond of the Supreme x Hanes three-packs of icy whites and wife beaters. Check out the entire line here: www.supremenewyork.com
Swedish label Acne takes a moment to discuss SS2010. Known for infusing popping colours into casual basics, they are at it again. More after the jump. (~Maryam Majekodunmi)
Maine is home to some of my favorite things: Poland Spring, Chris Corrado, and Rogues Gallery. The Northeastern-inspired collection is hotter than ever with its salty, sea-beaten aesthetic that adds a whole new dimension to progressive streetwear. We found some great pics of the fall collection and thought we’d share.You can practically smell the Atlantic in every shot. (Ptldme/Selectism)
If J.Crew is gunning to become an old boys’ club, it’s on the right track. The brand is set to open its second NYC men’s-only outpost, The Men’s Shop, this week, just a stone’s throw from its existing Liquor Store shop and with a similar retro, sepia-toned style. The space, formerly a newsstand, doesn’t have the broken-in aesthetic of the Liquor Store—yet. The reclaimed knotty-pine fixtures are untreated, encouraging them to weather quickly; in the meantime, the mood is set with vintage decor, from magazines and books (for sale) to pencil sharpeners and staplers (not so much). But atmosphere aside, the clothes are the highlight. The front of the Men’s Shop will stock what menswear director Frank Muytjens calls "the always list." In practice? A mix of the Crew menswear, third-party apparel, and exclusive merch from trad-friendly lines. Think outerwear from Mackintosh and Baracuta; footwear from Red Wing, Sperry, Alden, and Colchester, a revived brand of dead stock canvas sneakers. The back is devoted to J.Crew’s first-ever Suit Shop. All of the suiting options—many of them previously catalogue-only—are here, with a new, high-end Italian fabric line set to debut later this year. While there won’t be a tailor on the premises, we were assured that one would be on call—not on one of the red phones ubiquitous in all of J.Crew’s other stores, but, in keeping with the theme, on an antique rotary. (men.style)
The Men’s Shop, 484 Broadway, NYC, 212-343-1227, jcrew.com
There’s a showdown at the Hart Schaffner Marx factory, as one of the US’s last bastions of Made in the USA clothing fights for its life: Hartmarx, known for its Hart Schaffner & Marx and Hickey Freeman suits, and for making President Obama’s inauguration tuxedo and topcoat, has long been America’s leading clothier for men. Now its workers want to make the company, which is in bankruptcy, a leader in a different way. Hoping to save their jobs and start a national movement, Hartmarx workers are pressuring Wells Fargo, the company’s main creditor, to approve the sale of Hartmarx to a buyer that would keep it alive instead of liquidating it, and most likely putting its celebrated labels on suits made overseas. Seeing a political and public relations opening, the workers and their union are arguing that Wells Fargo, having received $25 billion in the bank bailout, should keep a 122-year-old American company like Hartmarx in business and preserve some 3,600 jobs. (NYT)
In mid-2006 Tim Soar launched his namesake menswear label TIM SOAR and has had audiences in awe ever since. "For a year or two I had felt an increasingly strong urge to move into fashion design. I felt that I had something to say about modern menswear, that it was time to move on from the flippant to something more serious. I set out to produce clothes that are a synthesis of minimalism and the avant garde made to the highest possible standards. My background in interior and graphic design meant I already had a strongly developed visual language, while my work with Music Concrete gave me numerous contacts within the fashion industry. My first collection (A/W06 Rat Pack/Reconstruction) consisted of deconstructed vintage suits. Matthew Murphy from B-Store brought some of the key pieces from this collection – and has continued to buy for subsequent seasons, Liberty brought my next Rockabilly inspired collection and thus I was hooked. I have been obsessed with fashion for more than 20 years, and now this obsession has an outlet. I am committed to making TIM SOAR a leading force in UK menswear." 
Check out my one on one with the entrepreneur himself….after the jump. (Yale Breslin)
LA based designer Freddie Rojas has taken a step over to the avant garde this season with his Cosmic Sleek collection–for the modern minimalist man. For AW09 Rojas gives us a pared down palette, heaps on the textures, with crinkle fabrics paired with fleece and chunky knits,and draped silhouettes infused with European inflections and formalwear elements. More pics after the jump.
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