Earnest Sewn

It would have been difficult for me to have had a happier childhood. Hugged, fed and educated, I suffered only one deprivation: stretch blue jeans. At age 12 this was cause for psychic lament, the absence piercing my adolescence with a longing so profound I never quite recovered. Charles Foster Kane pined for his Rosebud, Winston Churchill for his mother's love. For me it was Gloria Vanderbilt stretch jeans with the red piping down the leg.

But I'm happy to mount a defense of spendy blue jeans, to a point. I own a pair of AG Adriano Goldschmied jeans, and by virtue of a late-night shopping fit, a pair of Hudson jeans. (Beware: the Kitson Web site does not accept any returns.) But there are no expensive jeans better than Earnest Sewn, at least by my standards.

Founded by Scott Morrison, who was also a founder of Paper Denim & Cloth, the company manufacturers jeans of a lightweight denim in a variety of styles, with no label or commercial markings anywhere. Unless people came up and read the embossing on the top button of your fly, they wouldn't know what brand you were wearing. I prefer to not feel like a billboard.

At An Earnest Cut & Sew, the free-standing boutique of Earnest Sewn, which opened in April in the meatpacking district of Manhattan, shoppers can customize even that option for a price: custom-ordered jeans start at about $300. First, the customer picks a style. For men there is the Hutch (boot cut), the Fulton (straight leg) or the Hemingway (full leg). Who cares if not many people associate Ernest Hemingway with blue jeans?

For women there is the Hefner or Garbo (both boot cut), the Decca (straight leg) and a line of denim miniskirts. Shoppers can pick the color and fabric (milk blue, dark blue, white, rigid Japanese cotton or classic serge), the thread (orange, blue, yellow, black, dark gray or red), the rivets and buttons (copper, brass, nickel, gold) and the pocket lining (red, natural, herringbone or the customer's own fabric). Read More…