3x1

For almost a decade it seemed like every editor I met asked me to define ‘premium denim’. What makes it premium? Is premium really a thing? 3x1 was my answer: a glass-walled sewing factory in the middle of SoHo (NYC), stocked with the largest selection of selvedge denim in the world, sewn one pair at a time and made to measure.

Every pair was initially made on site. Customers could buy limited editions sewn in runs of up to 24 pieces, order a custom pair or create a bespoke pair with our patternmaker, starting at $1,200. A single pair could take up to eighteen hours to make, and each carried a 1/1 number woven into the label. Repeat customers received their own woven label. The name 3x1 came from denim’s most popular right-hand twill construction, and it was a nod to the fact that it was my third brand.

In 2019 our Mercer Street neighbor, Nike, asked me to make the first selvedge denim Air Force 1 series. I chose to use Japan’s Kuroki mill, and rather than wash the finished shoe, we washed the denim in blanket form before it was cut and sewn. Every pair used more than one blanket, which guaranteed that no two pairs were exactly the same.

That same year I hosted a documentary pilot called Common Thread. A short film on where denim needed to go next, filmed across Italy with Renzo Rosso of Diesel, our mill friends at Candiani, and the world-class laundry supplier Tonello, among others.