MENSWEAR? YOU’RE COVERED
Eison, Rockridge step up with suits, shirts in S.F., Oakland
The menswear offerings continue to grow in the Bay Area as two new brands seek to reimagine both men’s wardrobe curation and fashion giving back.
San Francisco made-tomeasure clothier Eison Triple Thread, launched in June by Julian Eison, is equal parts brick and mortar and online with its strategy.
“We don’t just want to be a suit maker,” says Eison, who describes the brand aesthetic as one of “honest luxury with a metropolitan sensibility.”
“We want to think differently about the wardrobe and how suits get to guys. One of the ways we will do that is by helping to build out what a man wears on his individual platform,” Eison says, refering to the clients’ shopping profile pages on the Eison Triple Thread site.
Eison Triple Thread is presently offering made-tomeasure suiting, formal wear and shirting, all executed in Shanghai. Each year the brand presents a single collection, carried in its Union Square “style gallery,” covering the fall and spring season. Eison says that while most customers have discovered the brand via the physical location (“we’ve spent almost nothing on advertising; it’s all about building relationships through events in-house”) most shoppers follow up online for additional purchases on Eison Triple Thread’s client profile pages.
“You can come into the gallery and get measured, or you can self-measure at home and enter it into your profile,” Eison says. “How we interpret that data, those measurements, is what makes us different.” Eison Triple Thread uses a “fit harmony process” that takes 20 measurements of a man’s body and checks those against body mappings of over 13,000 men in the system. “Then, we come up with an ideal fit based on this consumer data,” Eison says.
Prices for a full suit start at $699, shirting starts at $149 and trousers at $199.
Eison, a San Francisco native, has a background in private equity and taught himself how to make a suit “after tearing open a pair of pants and seeing how they were made.” In the fall, he brought Oakland stylist Dario Smith on board as director of product to help launch more streetwear-inspired pieces like denim and less formal outerwear.
“As far as I know, Eison Triple Thread is also the only African American-owned and operated custom menswear business in San Francisco,” Eison says. “Growing up here, I heard things from my family members about how there used to be places in the (historically black) Fillmore, but right now, I’m it for black-owned tailors in the city.”
Meanwhile, in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, Randy Wells founded a shirting line in November 2016 that he named, appropriately, Rockridge. He says the line is a Bay Area take on “the classic American prep and ivy aesthetic.”
“My goal was to accomplish two things,” Wells says. “To make a really great shirt that is fashionable, wearable and long-lasting, and also to make it in America at an accessible price point.” Rockridge’s initial patterns were developed at a factory in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood; the shirts are made in New York.
One of the other ways Rockridge nods at the Bay Area is through design homages to local culture. The Rockridge signature Locksley Oxford button-down shirt (all priced at $110) is named for the Oakland street Wells lives on, and the orange gussets inside the shirts that protect the hemline were are a tribute to the San Francisco Giants.
“Of all the cities I’ve lived in, the passion around sport teams here is really strong,” Wells says. “In Oakland and San Francisco, rallying around the team is our way of connecting.”
Wells says he started with the Oxford shirt to “honor the history of this very accessible, democratized garment.” In the fall, he plans to branch out into a variation on the classic athletic sweatshirt to be produced at a
factory in Emeryville.
“One of my other missions when I started Rockridge was that I wanted the community to help build a community,” Wells says. As an African American man, Wells says, he understands the importance that community groups and nonprofit organizations can have in bettering opportunities for young people of color. He has initiated a policy of donating the $150 a month Rockridge isn’t spending on advertising to DonorChoose.org, a nonprofit that “empowers public school teachers from across the country to request much-needed materials and experiences for their students.”
“I wanted to focus on education and start locally where any contribution can have a direct impact,” Wells says. “The benefit of Donor Choose is I can make a donation every month to a school in need in Oakland and see the need getting met. Other companies like Tom’s and Warby Parker have charitable initiatives that focus more globally; I wanted to look closer to home.” So far Rockridge has donated $549.22 to a total of four public schools within the Oakland Unified School District.
Rockridge is carried in Oakland at the Oakland Supply Company and in San Francisco at Asmbly Hall; all products also available on the Rockridge website.
“The customer response has been good,” Wells says.
“The biggest feedback is they love the fabric, they love the fit, they love the size range from extra-small to extra-large. Guys at extralarge have a hard time finding stuff that fits. And people love that it’s made in America.”