Naked & Famous Denim founder and managing director, Brandon Svarc, is a self-proclaimed denim nerd. Based out of Montreal, Canada, Brandon’s family has been in the apparel industry for over 57 years. In February 2008, at the age of 25, Svarc launched Naked & Famous Denim as a challenge to the premium denim industry. Despite warnings that the denim industry was over-saturated, Brandon moved forward to create a denim brand that would fill a need in the market. With jeans prices soaring and the economy turning, the goal for Naked & Famous Denim was to offer the consumer product value. That is, a far superior quality denim, but for a reasonable price.

Svarc headed off to Japan to collect some of the most rare and expensive cult denim fabric. The denim would then be imported into Canada where it would be cut, made, and sewn in a local factory that has been making jeans and work-wear for over 30 years. But they would keep all N&F jeans raw and simple. No washes or treatments are done on any N&F jeans. Also, Brandon handles all the brand’s sales himself so no commissions have to be paid, meaning this cost won’t be built-in to the price of the jeans. The concept of N&F is to strip down the product and company to its best core essentials, so they can offer the consumer these unique fabrics (i.e. cashmere denim, silk denim, a slew of vintage produced selvedge denim, a super-heavy 21oz selvedge denim, etc.) for ridiculously low prices. N&F jeans start at $125 at Barneys Co-op and other forward-thinking retailers in US, Canada, and Japan.

More info: www.nakedandfamousdenim.com

Lifestyles

1. Creating a unique look – All too often, I notice guys wearing ‘tattooed’ or heavily logoed clothing to try and stand out from the crowd, but this strategy will just make you blend in to the generic masses. Try investing in quality items that are well made with interesting fabrics, and choose one item that really pops. Check out some bad ass red sneakers from Common Projects, that’ll make you stand out in a good way.

2. Finding your size – Everyone asks me about how to choose the right size jeans. Denim is a woven twill fabric that will eventually relax with use and will stretch out a bit. So, your best bet is to buy a pair that fits snug to the waist at first, even if this means sizing down one or two sizes. Your jeans will stretch out to the perfect fit in one to two weeks. The exception is shrink-to-fit jeans where you size up two, but if you’re buying shrink-to-fit, you probably already know all this.

3. Washing tips for raw denim – I’m also often asked the question, ‘when and how often should I wash my raw jeans?’ The fun of raw denim is that the end-consumer gets to decide its fate. If you want to be a denimhead then you will perhaps never wash your jeans so that they fade beautifully and take your personal shape. If you think that is too smelly, then I recommend not washing for as long as you can hold off, then when you are happy with how your jeans are fading, go ahead and wash. Or, you might just be a regular dude who likes the clean look of raw denim, but prefers a softer feel, you can go ahead and wash your jeans once a week or whenever you feel like it. Enjoy!

4. Travel tip – Stuff your socks into your extra shoes. You’ll save packing space and retain the shape of your shoes.

5. Custom suit – If you are the kind of guy who gets custom or bespoke suits made, ask for working buttons on the cuff. Working buttons (also called Doctor or Surgeon buttons) were initially created back in the day so that doctors would be able to unbutton the cuffs of their jackets and roll up their sleeves to attend to their patients. Now almost all button holes on suit sleeves are fake, so working ones are a nice little rare detail that you can show off.