Scott Morrison
Founder · Operator · Creative · Designer
Seattle · New York City
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Earnest Sewn

2004 · Meatpacking District, New York
Founder, CEO & Designer

Earnest Sewn was the story I couldn’t tell at Paper Denim. By then I had been to Japan seven or eight times, and what I saw in its mills and workshops changed how I thought about construction.

What drew me in was the feedback loop forming in denim. The Japanese loved Americana and classic big-E Levi’s, while the premium and designer denim world was falling for Japan’s replica brands, the Osaka Five above all. I wanted to merge that Japanese denim culture with vintage Americana and spin it into something new. American icons with a Japanese twist. Think wabi-sabi meets general store grit.

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese concept of finding beauty in imperfection, and we embraced it in every jean we made. We used single needle stitching (key points sewn twice) so every jean was different in its own naturally imperfect way, just like the way things were done in the early 1900s. Tea-stained hangtags, hand-dyed bandanas, all tied into this new crossover concept.

Earnest Sewn was also a chance to stretch my design legs in other ways. I developed a team to source antiques and ended up designing all three of our stores, in the Meatpacking District, on Orchard Street and in Malibu, as well as the showroom, the corporate office and the Milk Bar at Milk Studios. We were among the first mono-brand stores to sell other makers’ products beside our own, Red Wing, Filson, Case & Sons, Carpe Diem and Bell & Ross watches among them.

One of my favorite collaborations, with Filson, was never an actual collaboration. We bought Filson tin cloth bags through our wholesale account and sent them to our denim laundry to be stained, distressed and aged, then repackaged them as limited editions, each one unique, and would sell them out as fast as we received them. Filson eventually sent a cease and desist, which they were entitled to do as it potentially waived their warranty, but to this day it is still one of my favorite things we ever put on the floor.

What the work covered

  • Brand positioning and creative direction
  • Japanese mill and laundry sourcing
  • Retail, showroom and store design
  • Multi-brand retail buying
  • P&L, hiring and day to day operation

Of note

  • Van Cleef & Arpels, the Richemont collaboration
  • Canada Goose x Earnest Sewn, the Waxed Cotton Arctic Program
  • ‘Custom Made’ denim first introduced in 2005
  • Worn by Tom Cruise on NBC’s Today show, 2005
  • Made for Tom Cruise and his stunt doubles on Mission: Impossible III
  • Also worn by Jessica Alba, Heidi Klum, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Sienna Miller and Halle Berry
  • Three stores, each designed in house
A development room with jeans hung on a rail, vintage Levi’s posters on the wall and fit samples across a long tableThe beginning of Earnest Sewn. 26 days to build a collection from nothing. 16 hour days in Henderson, Kentucky.
A handwritten sheet taped to a door listing base washes and finish treatments by nameThe first round of Earnest Sewn wash developments and their namesakes.
Benjamin Talley Smith, Sharon Weitz and Scott Morrison sitting on temple steps in JapanWith Benjamin Talley Smith and Sharon Weitz, on their first trip to Tokyo, Japan (2006)
Buyers sitting on the floor with jeans laid out, below a denim banner of waist sizes with 28 circledThe launch of Earnest Sewn. Los Angeles Market Week (2004)
Earnest Sewn branded shank buttons in copper, gunmetal, brass, nickel and navy on a worn benchHardware, finish by finish
Rows of denim hung on metal racks, drying in the sun in the yard of a laundryRinsed wash denim, air dried and hung before finishing.
Paper patterns hung in bundles beside trims, tapes and drawcords in a pattern roomPatterns and trims, hung by style
Store interior with the brand name painted on bare brick above a glasshouse frame and shelves of folded jeansThe Meatpacking District shop.
Scott Morrison talking to the Earnest Sewn team seated in cinema chairs, a rail of jeans on the brick wall behind himTaking the Earnest Sewn team through a line launch in the showroom.
A work bench of tins, bottles and a scale, with jeans on a rail and boots on the shelf aboveJeans on the rail, beside the bench
Waist sizes stencilled on bare brick above pigeonhole shelving, beside a patched indigo coatThe Meatpacking District shop.
Rails of denim against brick, with a hand-lettered sign pointing to antique kimonosThe Meatpacking District shop.
The Milk Bar, a dark panelled room with reclaimed wood walls, leather chesterfields, industrial pendant lamps and backlit windows behind the barThe Milk Bar, Milk Studios NYC
A tower of waxed tin cloth bags, stained and aged, stacked on a display unit in the Malibu storeFilson bags, ‘aged’ in our denim laundry, as seen at the Malibu store (2007)
Earnest Sewn trade advertisement for ENK Coterie at Pier 90, reading Tradition noted, History referenced, Homage paid“Tradition noted. History referenced. Homage paid.”