John Elliott can’t stop talking about prison. First, he tells a story he heard about how prisoners, when faced with limited options, are forced to innovate (it involved a man in jail who figured out how to rig an open flame to make grilled cheese sandwiches). He’s also obsessed with what he calls “prison tees”—or T-shirts worn to the point that they have a beautifully threadbare appearance.
But back to that enterprising grilled cheese-making prisoner. “I started to think about how, actually, when you narrow the scope, your options actually kind of expand,” said Elliott. He built his business off such a narrow scope—originally boxy hoodies and skinny jeans—but within that frame had to find a world of variation.
“We have no outward branding, and not that much of a print language,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of the tools that other brands have, and it’s intentional. It makes us go very deep—whether it be construction, fabric development, honestly, just anything that you can think of, from wash techniques to custom yarns. This is where we have to really push in order to make product speak.”
We were in his SoHo store looking at his fall collection, which included plenty of those tees and hoodies, but the jeans were slouchier, and, this season, he used New York to help him expand his design language. That meant more outerwear, like a double-breasted coat in heather gray silk-wool, and canvas work jackets in the style of Carhartt, with fraying edges and a weathered appearance thanks to a sulfur-dye treatment. There were also lightweight, treated, water-resistant leathers.
Another thread this fall was the idea of imperfection—like a puffer with intentional creases and exposed internal seams. Other pieces, like a slate gray zip-up and a patchwork plaid button-up, had nylon mesh inserts, lightly inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken porcelain is repaired with a gold-infused laquer. But perhaps the biggest surprise—at least to the designer—was a pair of cut-off double-knee shorts with sanded, ragged hems, which he made for himself but decided to put into production after people kept asking him about them. “It goes back to that jacket,” he said, referring to that intentionally wonky puffer. “If you’re going to really limit your options, you have to find textures or other details. You have to find ways to stand out.”
