One overcast Sunday morning, Benjamin Talley Smith, an apple-cheeked 45-year-old with a factor for a Canadian tuxedo, was on the Rose Bowl flea market in Los Angeles looking for denims.
He was carrying denims — a beat-up pair of Levi’s and an equally worn Levi’s denims jacket — and rooting via piles of denims. He wasn’t on the lookout for collectible denims, the classics that may fetch hundreds, however somewhat fascinating denims: denims with an uncommon fade or some bizarre D.I.Y. patchwork or a putting paint splatter.
“Each jean is totally different,” he stated with the air of an oenophile assessing a brand new bouquet. He was holding up a pair of denims with some massive white patches on the thighs. “Too acid-washed for me,” he stated, placing them again.
He picked up one other pair, pointing at a collection of pale strains at every ankle. “See that honeycomb put on sample?” he stated. “That was as a result of some cowboy had his denims tucked into his boots. I’d attempt to replicate that.”
Then he spied a pair of outdated denims from the Japanese model Evisu. “Take a look at that,” he stated. He smiled. “I made these.”
Discovering his personal work shouldn’t be an unusual prevalence for Mr. Smith. If vogue has a person behind the denim curtain — a wizard of denims — he’s it, a reputation that’s handed from model to model, designer to designer, like a secret password.
Scott Morrison, one of many founding fathers of premium denim in the US, employed Mr. Smith at Earnest Sewn after which launched him to Catherine Holstein of Khaite, who really useful him to Hali Borenstein of Reformation. Mr. Smith has additionally labored with Tommy Hilfiger, Alexander Wang, Rag & Bone, Juicy Couture, Helmut Lang, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Vince, Everlane, Aritzia, Jordache and Walmart, for whom he developed its sustainable Free Meeting denim, which begins at $27. His candy spot is the place between the denims behemoths — Levi’s, Lee, Wrangler — and the worldwide luxurious teams. When Ms. Holstein met Mr. Smith, he was launched to her, she stated, as “perhaps the most effective denim man in the US.”
He consulted on her best-selling Danielle denims — the high-waist, straight-leg model made well-known by Kendall Jenner, which helped finish the jegging growth and set off a quazillion TikTok movies — in addition to Reformation’s Val denims, favored by Miley Cyrus. Except for Khaite and Reformation, Mr. Smith is presently working with Ulla Johnson, La Ligne and Spanx (the Spanx being a reinvented denim line that can be rolled out in 2025).
The opposite week he went to a college interview for his son, and “one of many mother and father was carrying a full head-to-toe Ulla look I did,” he stated. “A loopy puff-sleeve denim jacket and matching skirt with big emblem buttons.”
“That, to me, is at all times probably the most enjoyable,” he stated. “I consider the denims like my youngsters. Every time I see them, I’m at all times like, ‘Oh, that’s considered one of mine.’”
Provided that the worldwide denims market is anticipated to achieve $121.50 billion by 2030 and that there’s just about no model, excessive or low, that doesn’t dream of denims, Mr. Smith is likely one of the most influential folks in vogue you could have by no means heard of.
Or by no means heard of till now.
The Language of Denims
Why does a dressmaker want a denim specialist? “It’s a totally totally different language,” Ms. Holstein stated. And denim is likely one of the most perennial of all clothes classes. As soon as clients uncover a mode they like, they have an inclination to maintain coming again. That’s why, when Ms. Holstein determined to start out her enterprise, Mr. Smith was the third individual she signed up. He likes to name himself the denim whisperer. And she or he knew she wanted somebody to talk denims.
In denims, “whiskers” doesn’t check with feline sensory antennae however somewhat the skinny pale strains created by sitting that radiate out on the crotch. “Ghost patches” are usually not supernatural; they’re gentle or darkish splotches on denims the place patches fell off. “Chevrons” don’t have anything to do with heraldry however check with the little puckers down the seams of the interior thigh created when the indigo rubs off. And “the magic triangle,” a time period that’s the denims equal of the golden imply, refers back to the optimum placement of the again pockets between the yoke and the middle seams.
Get it proper, and it’ll “make your butt look actually good,” Mr. Smith stated.
“Primarily in my thoughts, denims are about making your butt look actually good,” he continued. “In the event you place the pockets even 1 / 4 inch too far down on the periphery, they frown a bit. After which you could have a frowny butt. However in case you simply nudge them up a bit, you get glad butt.” His job is an limitless quest for the platonic glad butt.
For Ms. Johnson, who has been working with Mr. Smith since late 2020, designing with denim is a wholly totally different apply from designing with wool, cotton or silk.
“The diploma of scientific inquiry that goes into what number of hours of wash you want may be very, very totally different from questions of draping,” she stated. Nevertheless it issues, she stated, as a result of although solely 5 p.c of her assortment is denim, its income has doubled since final 12 months.
Then there’s the “shrinkage,” stated Ms. Borenstein, the chief govt of Reformation. Shrinkage occurs throughout the wash and impacts the match. A daily pair of pants could take a day to make and two or three fittings to excellent. A pair of denims, nevertheless, takes “a minimal of every week,” she stated. “The factors of measure are far more difficult. They must hug your legs in a whole lot of alternative ways.”
Ms. Borenstein stated that denim presently accounts for about 10 p.c of Reformation’s general revenues. (Reformation introduces 25 to 30 denim items a month.) Denim can also be Reformation’s fastest-growing class. The Val jean, in a lightweight blue wash named for the Colorado River — is its single best-selling model this 12 months, the primary time since Reformation was based in 2009 something apart from a gown has held that spot.
Mr. Smith stated it takes a median of two years after the preliminary idea to grasp if a product line is engaged on the store ground. (Not like some denim specialists, he helps construct strains from conception via manufacturing facility manufacturing, washes, and so forth.)
“Denim is admittedly costly to construct,” he stated. Every time he’s approached by a model, “I at all times have an sincere dialog that it’s going to price 30 grand simply to get the primary assortment off the bottom,” he stated (at the very least whether it is made in Los Angeles). “Then it’s a must to preserve it.” Nonetheless, he stated, he turns away manufacturers “pretty typically.”
Denim Is Everlasting
In Los Angeles, which is the center of the American denims world and the place Mr. Smith lives, he has a loftlike workplace that’s kind of a cross between a temple of denims and a lab of denims.
The wall behind his desk is hung with 51 totally different pairs of denims, arrayed from darkish to gentle, in order that each time he turns his head, he sees denims. He has racks of denims and cabinets stacked with plastic bins filled with denims organized by wash and model — “properly over 1,000 denims” in all. He has the primary pair of denims he ever made, again in 2000, when he was in faculty, and probably the most difficult pair of denims he ever made, for Evisu, which was impressed by an historic pair of Levi’s and concerned so many alternative aged patches, every of which needed to be created by hand, that one pair took two weeks to make and price $800.
“It was not sensible,” Mr. Smith stated.
Mr. Smith didn’t anticipate to be a denim man. He grew up in a small city in Vermont, the youngest of 5 youngsters. His father was a photographer and bookstore proprietor and ran a printing press; his mom was a schoolteacher and music trainer. He was “born in a mattress that my dad had constructed,” he stated, and customarily wore Carhartt.
He didn’t actually take into consideration denims till he acquired to the Massachusetts School of Artwork and Design, when he found Diesel, and he definitely didn’t plan to make denims his profession — he supposed to enter movie and interned for Ken Burns, the documentarian — till he determined he needed to work together with his arms and switched to vogue.
A short stint with a Boston designer took him to Paris, after which, after commencement, he acquired a job with Tommy Hilfiger. He was speculated to be engaged on outerwear, however it was 2003 and premium denim was turning into a factor. Hilfiger wanted somebody in denims. Then the manager in control of denim acquired sick.
“Mainly they have been like, ‘You must do all of it,’” Mr. Smith stated. “I used to be 25.” So commenced his odyssey into denims.
Although Mr. Smith dabbled briefly in his personal line, referred to as Talley and that includes made-to-order denims that took about 4 weeks to provide, he determined he was happier consulting, transferring from model to model. “It retains me nimble to have the ability to make a $27 jean after which a $500 jean,” he stated, referring to the Walmart-Khaite divide.
Mr. Smith splits his time between the Los Angeles workplace; his favourite close by manufacturing facility, Caitac Garment Processing Inc., which makes a speciality of washes and laser- and hand-sanding (he additionally works with factories in Pakistan and Turkey); and an residence within the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn that he saved as a result of he goes to New York about as soon as a month to see shoppers.
In Los Angeles, he lives in Studio Metropolis, in a ranch-style bungalow inbuilt 1937, together with his spouse, Danielle Robinson, a co-head of expertise at Issa Rae’s ColorCreative administration firm, and their 5-year-old son. (Khaite’s Danielle denims are named in his spouse’s honor.) At dwelling, he has 22 pairs of denims that he really wears. His spouse additionally has a whole lot of denims.
“She has lots of of pairs, however on daily basis she’ll say, ‘Oh, I like that one in your closet,’” he stated. “After which she will get mad at me as a result of I’ll say, ‘Oh, you could have that bizarre window jean from 5 years in the past. I have to borrow it for one thing,’ and he or she doesn’t suppose it is going to come again.”
Not too long ago he was attempting to duplicate considered one of his outdated pairs of Levi’s for Khaite. He had been carrying them throughout a gathering with Ms. Holstein to evaluation samples for the brand new season, and he or she was particularly taken with the pure placement of the rips.
“It takes a whole lot of ardour and curiosity and tenacity to essentially be a pupil of denim,” Ms. Holstein stated. “I haven’t met anyone who has it like Ben has it.”
For him, every pair of denims provides start to the subsequent pair, which provides start to the subsequent and so forth. “The wash is sort of a residing, respiration factor,” he stated. “It doesn’t at all times come out the best way you need it to, or it leads you in loopy new methods.” It’s jeanvolution in actual time.
“I’m by no means bored,” Mr. Smith stated. Every time he’s in a crowd of strangers, he thinks to himself, I wager I’ve a jean in your closet.
