THE UPDATE: 5 CLASSY PIECES
ROYGBIV collaboration creates collections of stylish essentials for men and women
“I like to joke that when I first met Jake Wall two years ago, I didn’t like him,” designer Bethany Meuleners says. Wall shrugs and nods in agreement.
“It’s true,” says the designer and cofounder of San Francisco’s Artful Gentleman. “But as you can see, we’ve moved past that.”
This February, Artful Gentleman will introduce the ROYGBIV capsule collection — its first foray into ready-to-wear, with Meuleners adding her expertise in a new role: guest designer and collaborator for ready-to-wear.
“It’s an ongoing position,” Wall says. “We like the term ‘special guest designer’ for Bethany since it has kind of a Hollywood feeling to it, like when Heather Locklear was the ‘special guest star’ for years on ‘Melrose Place.’ ”
In the past 3½ years, Artful Gentleman has established itself as a fine clothier specializing in custom suiting, at first for men, then expanding to women. The brand’s profile has steadily risen in the local fashion scene with its commitment to community involvement, like co-hosting the Human Rights Campaign’s pre-gala “Suit Up!” fashion show annually, as well as pop-up events for Bay Area designers at its showroom in the McRoskey Mattress Building.
The move into ready-to-wear with ROYGBIV (named for the abbreviated color spectrum — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) may seem like a sudden course change, but Wall and Artful Gentleman co-owner Nathan Johnson explains it’s a possibility they’ve been exploring for some time.
“When we were designers in residence at the Fashion Incubator San Francisco in 2013, our mentors in the program told us from the beginning that this was a direction we needed to pursue,” Johnson says. “It’s definitely been on our minds that long.”
“Bethany’s experience working within ready-to-wear at Mansoor Scott was essential if we wanted to move into this area,” Wall says. “When I design in custom, I’m looking at a specific body and creating for that one person. Bethany’s ability to create for the body in that readyto-wear context was a necessity.”
Meuleners initially met Wall and Johnson at FiSF during Artful Gentleman’s residency. (Full disclosure: The writer is currently an unpaid member of FiSF’s advisory committee.) She had been a designer in the program the year before as part of her former label, Mansoor Scott (with partner Sabah Mansoor), and although she and Wall didn’t initially hit it off, as they got to know each other, a friendship and a professional respect was born.
“I really admire what Jake and Nate have built with Artful Gentleman,” Meuleners says. “Jake is always working at full speed; it takes a minute to get used to it.”
The ROYGBIV capsule collection includes men’s and women’s lines, each consisting of what Wall and Meuleners call the “five easy pieces” they believe are essential foundations for the modern wardrobe. On the men’s side, this translates to the perfect white button-down shirt, a pair of varsity-influenced jogger pants (“So hot at the moment, we had to do our version,” Wall says), a V-neck cashmere sweater, the hybrid moto-topcoat and their first foray into accessories, a skinny varsity tie.
“We thought not only about what translates well to the capsule world,” Wall says of the collection. “We also thought about creating pieces that you could return to every season and keep adding to as the next capsule debuts each season.”
For women, the pieces consist of a white shirt-dress, a leather “cheerleader” flared skirt, black slacks, a femme companion to the moto-topcoat and a cashmere sweater featuring one of Meuleners’ fashion signatures, the juxtaposition of the softness of knit with the hard architecture of leather.
“That’s one of the places Jake and I tend to meet,” Meuleners says. “The unexpected combination of materials is something we’ve both done in our work; in our design process it’s been a common theme.”
The collection has been a top-secret project since Meuleners joined Artful Gentleman during the 2014 holiday season and officially goes on sale on the Artful Gentleman website Feb. 1. The designers warn that ROYGBIV will debut in a limited, numbered run with “no more than 100” pieces of each item made and even smaller runs of some of the higher-priced garments, like the moto-topcoats (prices range from $110 for the varsity tie up to $ 1,295 for the men’s coat).
Former Vogue editor Emily Holt, who recently relocated to the Bay Area, says that from a brand perspective, the idea of moving into limited ready-to-wear makes sense, since “it will still feel like custom quality and exclusive due to the small run. It makes sense for the brand to also keep it focused on the five easy pieces, like Donna Karan’s seven easy pieces. When launching something new, it’s best not to overextend your vision.”
Holt was also struck by “a certain unisex quality to both the men’s and the women’s lines. It’s so popular now, and the pieces could easily translate back and forth. The unisex trend has been slowly transforming the way we look at clothes and dress these past few seasons.”
Colby Hallen, owner of Hunter Gatherer in Napa, previously worked with Meuleners on a charity fashion show for the Lunch Box Fund in 2013 and finds her to be “a great addition to a great brand. They’ve created unique investment pieces, and in my experience at Hunter Gatherer, people really respond to high-end basics. It feels bespoke, a great tie-in to their brand evolution.”
For a collection named after the color spectrum, the first ROYGBIV is decidedly low on color, sticking to black and white with the occasional foray into deep navy blue.
“That’s part of the concept,” Wall says, “With each capsule, as we add new pieces, there will also be a new color emphasized.
“We wanted to wait to approach readyto-wear until we knew we could execute it as well as we do our custom pieces. Now that we’re launching ROYGBIV, we see the potential for further expansion as pretty limitless.”