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Timothy Grindle, the founder of Canoe Club, a menswear store in Boulder, Colorado, keeps a list on his phone that tracks all the brands he’s considering buying. “I put them in different categories: one is ‘soon’, one is ‘keep an eye on it’, and the last one is brands that nobody knows about yet,” he says. “I shift them around until I feel like we’re ready to stock them or they start to fill a gap that we might have.”
In recent seasons, Grindle’s buy at Canoe Club has moved away from “traditional runway brands” into independent labels like Seya, Taiga Takahashi, and Aaron Levine. “Legacy brands are not the ones that are leading for us at all; it’s a collective of a lot of the smaller brands,” he says. The shift is buoying Canoe Club’s business: this year, the store is moving to a larger site in a former peanut butter factory, expanding its stock and hiring more staff, which Grindle says is the result of the boom in smaller brands. “It used to be a real risk to bring in new stuff, but not anymore. People have never been this open to new brands.” The labels resonating with Grindle’s customers share similar priorities: a focus on fabric development and manufacturing.
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The right retail response
At Shop Boswell in Portland, Oregon, owner Brookes Boswell is adding to her selection of independent menswear brands; this season, they account for 40-45% of her buy, and she expects this to rise to half once the summer buying season closes. “I’m seeing more, especially younger men, who are interested in fashion in general. It’s like a hobby,” says Boswell.
To get their attention, Boswell says that putting a heavy focus on quality alone is not enough; it’s fit and size grading that are most crucial when cinching a sale. “It doesn’t matter how many times it’s been dipped in the mud bath or how many threads per inch it’s been woven, it still has to fit really well,” she says, singling out Kaptain Sunshine, Arpenteur, and Camiel Fortgens as brands that excel at both fit and fabric.
The shift is also influencing how luxury stores are merchandising collections: Kartik Research and Sage Nation now hang in the designer rooms at department stores like Selfridges and Liberty, where they sit next to Dries van Noten and Lemaire — brands that, by and large, command a much higher price point. (A cotton shirt from Kartik Research costs £325 from Selfridges, while a comparable style at Dries van Noten is £945.) “The fabrics and designs of these brands stand up against all the more established brands, and the sell-throughs prove it,” says Hewitt.
To keep the momentum going, experts say that brands need to watch closely what’s selling and be unafraid to lean into it. “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every season, especially if it’s a hit,” says Hewitt. “If a buyer has great success with one style of shirt or pants, they are happy to buy again in a new fabric or color.”
“To get someone to purchase your version of a product, you need to tell a wider narrative that is relevant to them and represents them on some deeper level,” says Altman. Last year, the brand launched a made-to-measure service, which the designer says has been the fastest growing area of the business “by leaps and bounds”.
The brand has also made a concerted push to dress directors and performers, and collaborated with stylist Patricia Villirillo on a capsule collection last year, which Altman says was a resounding success. “I think we connect with our consumer because we’re talking to a contemporary cultural landscape that they are also participating in and trying to make something that’s not just reverential to the past, but relevant for now,” he says.
Kinori, for his part, takes a more hermit-like approach. “I try to turn down all the noise and stay in tune with my own frequency,” he says. “Maybe one day everyone will be wearing skintight stretch denim or polyester jumpsuits and my work will be irrelevant, but I’ll still be approaching it just as I am now.”
