Levine’s enthusiasm for his new venture is palpable—his eyes gleam at the very mention of the soft thermal undershirts he’s making at a factory in Detroit, and his favorite adjectives to describe the products are “fire” and “gas.” (As in: “The articulated knee on this pant is so fire.”) He recalls his full-time corporate positions with frustration. “You’re in a fitting with 12 people,” he says. “You’re in there with tech design, you’re in there with design, you’re in with merchants, you’re in with production, and everyone has opinions, right?” he says. “Someone would be like, that pocket’s too big. Oh, the neck trim on that’s too tall. And it’s like, Where did that come from? What’s your point of reference?”
Courtesy of Aaron Levine / Ben Weller
Courtesy of Aaron Levine / Ben Weller
Today, the only other people in the room is Tietz and a small dog that does laps around the factory. They’re soon joined by Arturo Castañeda, a production guru by way of Ralph Lauren who owns the Williamsburg facility where they’ve set up shop and where much of the collection is made—on my way in, I pass a length of worktables covered in stacks of wool trousers and lightly-oversized oxford shirts. Levine, it turns out, is serious about the value part. I’ve been to enough clothing factories to know there aren’t many left located a few L train stops away from Manhattan, yet Levine’s pricepoints remain super competitive by high fashion standards, with trousers clocking in a hair shy of $400.
Though their partnership is only getting started, Levine and Castañeda already resemble lifelong compatriots. “Arturo is a tailor,” Levine says. “The people that are here that are making this stuff are tailors. They’re not just operators. They have soul, and they’re putting their soul into this product.” “We know this guy’s off the chain talented, but what really appealed to me was how human he is,” says Castaneda. “To me, it was a no-brainer after meeting him. He went up to everybody at a machine or at the table, and he was just so kind.” A partner in Detroit, Josh York, is in charge of manufacturing the cut-and-sew garments, and the influencer Nolan White is the team’s utility player, helping out with a little bit of everything. “It is just the right balance of people that when we decided to do this thing, it just fell into place,” Levine says.
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