All in the Family with Triarchy’s Adam Taubenfligel
From the start, denim brand Triarchy has been a family affair. Siblings Adam, Ania and Mark Taubenfligel founded Triarchy as a direct-to-consumer label in 2011, leveraging their particular skillsets. Adam handles design and creative direction, while Ania heads up social media and marketing and Mark serves as business director.
Triarchy originally began with a focus on creating great denim, but in 2016 the siblings’ priorities shifted. After five years of operating the brand and seeing the eco impact of jeans firsthand, they decided to change course toward a more environmentally friendly production and business model. They shuttered manufacturing and sales for two years and relaunched as a sustainability-first brand.
Carved in Blue caught up with Adam to discuss the early days in his denim career and his reflection on the past decade of Triarchy.
Carved in Blue: Tell us briefly about your business?
Adam: Triarchy started as my brother, sister and I making and selling jeans, and now we have a team of 20 spread all over the world helping us to elevate the denim industry to one of responsible, ethical and accountable manufacturing.
Triarchy only manufactures jeans that fit into our strict lens of responsible denim manufacturing. This means only choosing fabrics that are made with 100 percent organic cotton—and verifying the sources of that cotton—or recycled cotton, as well as TENCEL™ and REFIBRA™. Then making the jeans in a factory that pays above a living wage, while using washing equipment that drastically reduces chemical use and water consumption.
We also eliminated plastic stretch from our brand and, thanks to Candiani, replaced it with the industry-first natural rubber alternative to plastic stretch. (Clap, clap!)
We then have third-party auditors verify our supply chain and manufacturing practices and allow them to publish their findings independent of us.
Lastly, we offset the carbon for every pair of jeans we make and then donate a portion of sales profits to Isla Urbana, who build and install rainwater catchment systems for people in and around Mexico City without access to water.
Carved in Blue: What was your first impression of the denim business when you were younger?
Adam: I started working in denim in my early 20s in the Molise region of Italy. I literally just dove in on the factory floor and haven’t looked back since. Being that my career started in Italy, my first impression of the denim business was of fabulous people making fabulous jeans for fabulous brands interspersed with exquisite pasta, excellent espresso and all the buffalo mozzarella one could eat. Needless to say, I loved it, and that love has only grown, even though I’m farther from the buffalo mozzarella now.
Carved in Blue: How did you start working together in denim?
Adam: When I left Italy and came back to Canada, it was at a time when my siblings and I were all finding our way in the world. My sister was modeling and my brother was completing his degree in business and building custom motorbikes, so when we all went horseback riding one fine summer day I pitched the idea of making our own jeans and I didn’t hear any complaints. That was 10 years ago this year.
Carved in Blue: Did you always want to go into the denim business?
Adam: In going through my things from when I was a child, I noticed that I saved each and every Versace Jeans Couture ad I had ever seen. I’ve now framed some of them. Fashion was always in my blood, but denim I just happened upon, thankfully. I think the Versace ads spoke to me because I was fascinated at how a piece of clothing with a strict history of being workwear could continue to be workwear in present day as well as be reimagined by a luxury fashion house, and everything in between. What other single piece of clothing can claim such a breadth besides the T-shirt? It’s no wonder they go so well together. Like siblings!
Carved in Blue: Do you want your children to follow in your footsteps?
Adam: I don’t have children, just my pooch. But I will defer this question to Ania.
Ania: Absolutely! It would make me incredibly happy for my children to follow in our footsteps. Hopefully by the time my children’s generation is in the workforce, we will have eradicated fast fashion and created a world where only sustainable and ethically manufactured clothing exists. What a world that would be. I hope to pass the torch on to my children, and I believe they will want to carry it because of the knowledge and passion my brothers and I instill in them. We have the capability of shaping the future through our children and what we teach them.
Carved in Blue: When did you realize you were a blueblood?
Adam: In those early days in Italy. Long days at the factory, getting home by 9 or 10 each night but bouncing out of bed the next morning and the morning after and the morning after. I knew I was where I was meant to be, even if at the time it felt a bit removed. This was before smartphones and my flat was 200 square feet over two floors. All I had to do in those days were make jeans and eat good food with the people I made those jeans with, and it was glorious.
Carved in Blue: What is the best advice you’ve gotten from your sister and brother?
Adam: My brother always supported me in being myself. He was the first person I came out to, and having a big brother that you could feel comfortable coming out to when you’re so vulnerable shaped me into the man I am today. That wasn’t specific advice, but it makes me so proud to know that he has kids now and that those kids get a dad like him.
My sister has always been my muse. She was my first fit model and I shot her in all our first campaigns. She was the one who kept encouraging me to keep going when I couldn’t encourage myself anymore. Like my brother, she now has a daughter, and what a lucky daughter she is to have Ania as a mother.
Carved in Blue: What do you think lies ahead for the denim industry in the future?
Adam: So much more responsibility, mindfulness, consciousness. Creating with purpose. Eradicating outdated practices of manufacturing and selling and no more plastic!
Carved in Blue: What does Carved in Blue mean to you?
Adam: A community of like-minded, equally passionate people revolving around the world, elevating the denim industry together, one pair of jeans at a time.