What does a future fashion designer study in college? To make clothes, you don’t need to pass a test the way a lawyer does to practice law or a doctor must to treat patients. You could study . . . anything. Tom Ford got his diploma in architecture; Ralph Lauren spent a couple years studying business before enlisting in the Army; Cristóbal Balenciaga didn’t go to college.
Then there’s Brett Johnson, the cerebral owner and creative director of his eponymous label. He studied sociology at the University of Michigan. “People’s actions and reactions to the way something is—that has always sparked my curiosity,” says Johnson, 35. “I love how you watch a movie with ten people and you get ten different reactions to that one film.”
To study sociology is to learn that a piece of media or an object—say, an aviator jacket made from deerskin—can transcend its objectness because everyone who sees or touches the jacket will interpret the garment in a unique way. The clothes we wear tell a story about the person wearing them. Any smart fashion person comes to understand this eventually. In that way, you might argue that studying sociology is a cheat code for a designer.
Despite that advantage, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of Brett Johnson—yet. There are few places on U. S. soil where you can buy his clothes. But he couldn’t be more American. Johnson spent his childhood in Washington, D. C., and Middleburg, Virginia. “Horse country,” he says. He grew up playing baseball, basketball, and football. He roots for the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bulls. From 2021 to 2023, he served as creative director for the Washington Wizards. He has a wife, three young kids, and a home outside D. C.
His customers, however, are almost entirely outside the U. S. The company is based in Milan, where he travels to once or twice a month. His clothes are sold in high-end stores in London, Paris, Milan, Stuttgart, Rotterdam, Riyadh, and Mumbai. All of this is intentional. “Our aesthetic appeals more to the European market, the Middle East, and progressing into Asia,” he says. “Once we become established in these other markets, then we’ll turn more attention to the U. S.”
But don’t wait for that day to come. Brett Johnson is a brand you should know now (and that you can buy online). The ten-year-old label is an American’s take on European luxury. Johnson makes beautiful—and expensive—clothes for men. They feel both fresh and familiar, modern but never trendy. His collections include a lot of cashmere, as well as the more luxurious forms of leather like suede and, yes, deerskin. There are blazers but no ties. The clothes are casual and comfortable for an eight-hour flight from New York to Paris, but elegant enough to then head straight from Charles de Gaulle to a meeting or dinner.
Although his garments more resemble those of Brunello Cucinelli or Loro Piana, Johnson says he most admires Giorgio Armani. “He’s created a full world and told his story his way,” Johnson says. “It’s unmistakably him. I think a lot of people struggle to do that. Everybody wants to ride this wave or catch this trend. He’s just stayed very true to who he is as a person and his identity.”
Twice a year, during men’s fashion week in Milan, Johnson shows off his latest collection to international journalists. In these presentations, he exhibits a deep mastery of menswear—explaining in detail the materials from which the clothes are made, their origin, and the way they’re weaved into a garment. Right now, he’s obsessed with 15-micron bouclé yarn, a wool so small it feels softer than cashmere. What interests him most about the yarn, he explains, is “how people perceive wool.”
There it is again: sociology.
Johnson didn’t always know he wanted to be a fashion designer. He just wanted to find a career in a creative field, with the potential for longevity and, if possible, the chance to leave a legacy. Why does Johnson think in such meaningful terms, with an eye toward world-building? Credit his upbringing. Johnson’s parents, who divorced when he was in the fourth grade, founded Black Entertainment Television, also known as BET.
“Watching my parents create this media empire telling Black stories, I thought that was quite interesting, quite compelling, because that side of a lot of Black history never had a canvas on which to tell a lot of those stories,” he says.
As a kid, Johnson loved sneakers. He had about 750 pairs. (Today his collection has swelled to 1,500.) When he was 12, he discovered NikeiD, which enabled you to customize your own sneakers. “That was my first foray into fashion and how to express myself as a person,” he says.
After college, he got an internship at a company run by a family friend: G-III Apparel Group, which licensed brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. He also learned from his mom’s friend, Donna Karan, and a guy known to any sneakerhead, D’Wayne Edwards, who started the nation’s first design academy for sneakers only, Pensole Lewis College. “I had good people show me the ropes of design,” Johnson says.
This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Esquire
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In 2014, Johnson started his brand with footwear. To prepare for a full clothing line, he spent the next two years traveling up and down Italy—visiting factories, sourcing materials, learning about the stitches and patterns. “It was a vast course on production cycles, materials, fabrics, leathers, yarns,” he says.
Johnson was also grappling with a feeling that hung heavily upon him. “How would people perceive a Black designer who comes from a family known for telling Black stories?” Johnson says. “As some kid whose parents made it and he just wants to slap his name on something? Or can I do something that tells a bigger story?”
Ultimately, Johnson’s clothes are the sum of his particular experience as a Black man in America. The aesthetic comes from what he saw as his parents took on the world. His dad wore Brioni suits, his mom Loro Piana. But this look, he concedes, does not reflect how the fashion industry perceives a Black designer. “It’s always been very streetwear driven,” he says. “That just wasn’t my aesthetic, how I grew up, how I saw my parents dress.”
But refusing to meet the expectations put on Black designers has meant that portions of the fashion establishment have ignored him. “I’m not sure if it’s like, ‘What do you do with this kid? He is not doing streetwear; he’s doing this elevated ultra-luxury menswear. He’s not like anything we’ve seen.’ ”
That would be daunting for someone less confident in their own narrative. “I sort of feel like an outcast,” he continues. “It’s an interesting place to be. It’s still somewhat of a comfort zone because it’s just the way I grew up. It was tough to relate to other people, but this is my story and who I am, and I’ve just always marched in this way, and I’m going to continue to do so.”
It’s easy to say that clothes speak for themselves, but it’s the way a man interprets what the clothes say to him that matters. How they make him feel. The stories he’ll earn. The legacy he’ll leave. A Brett Johnson man should feel confident taking on the world, just like the designer.
BRETT’S BUILDING BLOCKS
For Johnson, true luxury always starts with the raw materials from which his clothes are made.
Deerskin
Especially when tanned by the Italians, this leather has a supple and spongy texture, which makes it as comfortable to wear as cashmere and a perfect material for bomber jackets, coats, and even sneakers.
Vicuña
The most luxurious fiber known to humankind, vicuña is difficult (and costly) to process. It’s also fragile. Because dyeing adversely affects the supersoft handle, it’s almost always left in its undyed state—a very specific, very expensive tawny brown. —Nick Sullivan
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