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 by piles of denims. He wasn’t on the lookout for collectible denims, the classics that may fetch 1000’s, however moderately 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 mentioned 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 mentioned, placing them again.
He picked up one other pair, pointing at a collection of light traces at every ankle. “See that honeycomb put on sample?” he mentioned. “That was as a result of some cowboy had his denims tucked into his boots. I would attempt to replicate that.”
Then he spied a pair of outdated denims from the Japanese model Evisu. “Take a look at that,” he mentioned. He smiled. “I made these.”
Discovering his personal work will not be an unusual incidence 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 helpful 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 mentioned, as “possibly the very best 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 at present 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 faculty interview for his son, and “one of many mother and father was carrying a full head-to-toe Ulla look I did,” he mentioned. “A loopy puff-sleeve denim jacket and matching skirt with big brand buttons.”
“That, to me, is at all times probably the most enjoyable,” he mentioned. “I consider the denims like my youngsters. Every time I see them, I’m at all times like, ‘Oh, that’s certainly one of mine.’”
On condition that the worldwide denims market is anticipated to succeed in $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 among the most influential individuals in vogue you might have by no means heard of.
Or by no means heard of till now.
The Language of Denims
Why does a designer want a denim specialist? “It’s a very totally different language,” Ms. Holstein mentioned. And denim is among the most perennial of all clothes classes. As soon as clients uncover a mode they like, they have a tendency 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 seek advice from feline sensory antennae however moderately the skinny light traces created by sitting that radiate out on the crotch. “Ghost patches” aren’t supernatural; they’re gentle or darkish splotches on denims the place patches fell off. “Chevrons” don’t have anything to do with heraldry however seek advice from the little puckers down the seams of the internal 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 mentioned.
“Primarily in my thoughts, denims are about making your butt look actually good,” he continued. “In case you place the pockets even 1 / 4 inch too far down on the periphery, they frown a bit. After which you might have a frowny butt. However in the event you simply nudge them up a bit, you get joyful butt.” His job is an infinite quest for the platonic joyful butt.
For Ms. Johnson, who has been working with Mr. Smith since late 2020, designing with denim is a wholly totally different follow from designing with wool, cotton or silk.
“The diploma of scientific inquiry that goes into what number of hours of wash you want could be very, very totally different from questions of draping,” she mentioned. But it surely issues, she mentioned, 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,” mentioned Ms. Borenstein, the chief govt of Reformation. Shrinkage occurs through the wash and impacts the match. An everyday pair of pants could take a day to make and two or three fittings to good. A pair of denims, nonetheless, takes “a minimal of per week,” she mentioned. “The factors of measure are rather more sophisticated. They should hug your legs in plenty of other ways.”
Ms. Borenstein mentioned that denim at present accounts for about 10 p.c of Reformation’s total revenues. (Reformation introduces 25 to 30 denim items a month.) Denim can 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 costume has held that spot.
Mr. Smith mentioned it takes a mean of two years after the preliminary idea to know if a product line is engaged on the store ground. (Not like some denim specialists, he helps construct traces from conception by manufacturing unit manufacturing, washes, and so on.)
“Denim is basically costly to construct,” he mentioned. Every time he’s approached by a model, “I at all times have an trustworthy dialog that it’s going to value 30 grand simply to get the primary assortment off the bottom,” he mentioned (a minimum of whether it is made in Los Angeles). “Then you need to keep it.” Nonetheless, he mentioned, he turns away manufacturers “pretty usually.”
Denim Is Everlasting
In Los Angeles, which is the guts of the American denims world and the place Mr. Smith lives, he has a loftlike workplace that’s form 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 at any time when 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 — “effectively 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 sophisticated pair of denims he ever made, for Evisu, which was impressed by an historical 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 value $800.
“It was not sensible,” Mr. Smith mentioned.
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 instructor. He was “born in a mattress that my dad had constructed,” he mentioned, 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 actually didn’t plan to make denims his profession — he supposed to enter movie and interned for Ken Burns, the documentarian — till he determined he wished to work along with his palms 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 imagined to be engaged on outerwear, nevertheless it was 2003 and premium denim was turning into a factor. Hilfiger wanted somebody in denims. Then the manager answerable for denim acquired sick.
“Mainly they have been like, ‘It’s important to do all of it,’” Mr. Smith mentioned. “I used to be 25.” So commenced his odyssey into denims.
Although Mr. Smith dabbled briefly in his personal line, known as Talley and that includes made-to-order denims that took about 4 weeks to supply, he determined he was happier consulting, shifting from model to model. “It retains me nimble to have the ability to make a $27 jean after which a $500 jean,” he mentioned, referring to the Walmart-Khaite divide.
Mr. Smith splits his time between the Los Angeles workplace; his favourite close by manufacturing unit, 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 stored as a result of he goes to New York about as soon as a month to see purchasers.
In Los Angeles, he lives in Studio Metropolis, in a ranch-style bungalow in-built 1937, along 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 truly wears. His spouse additionally has plenty of denims.
“She has tons of of pairs, however on daily basis she’ll say, ‘Oh, I like that one in your closet,’” he mentioned. “After which she will get mad at me as a result of I’ll say, ‘Oh, you might have that bizarre window jean from 5 years in the past. I have to borrow it for one thing,’ and she or he doesn’t assume it would come again.”
Lately he was attempting to copy certainly one of his outdated pairs of Levi’s for Khaite. He had been carrying them throughout a gathering with Ms. Holstein to overview samples for the brand new season, and she or he was particularly taken with the pure placement of the rips.
“It takes plenty of ardour and curiosity and tenacity to essentially be a scholar of denim,” Ms. Holstein mentioned. “I haven’t met anyone who has it like Ben has it.”
For him, every pair of denims offers beginning to the subsequent pair, which provides beginning to the subsequent and so forth. “The wash is sort of a residing, respiration factor,” he mentioned. “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 mentioned. Every time he’s in a crowd of strangers, he thinks to himself, I guess I’ve a jean in your closet.
