Endrime Shares Highlights of North American Denim Inspiration Tour
My name is Mohsin Sajid, and I run a denim design consultancy called Endrime based in the U.K. with my wife Sadia Rafique. Like any design team, we need constant inspiration to keep things fresh for each collection we design or video we direct. In the past, we have travelled to Japan, and all over Asia each season. But we have not travelled as much to the denim pilgrimage spots across the USA, and it’s been a trip we wanted to do for a long time.
Before Covid hit us all in the summer of 2020, we had plans to visit the USA on a mammoth four-week trip and visit as many denim friends as possible. The real reason (or excuse) to see LA was to visit our buddy Amy Leverton, see Saitex’s new factory and Artistic Milliners’ Star Fades International, visit Maurzio Donadi’s design office and to visit San Francisco and see the Levi’s archive. Everything else would be a bonus.
I’m currently writing a number of denim books, which I’m hoping to publish for the 150th anniversary of the blue jean in May 20, 2023.
One of the books which I’m writing is about how to make denim jeans. Since 2005, I’ve been teaching at a number of universities worldwide and I always wanted to write a text book for my students. There are countless known methods, and different designers construct jeans very differently. I want to document as many ways as possible in one book, and I especially want to teach not just the Levi’s 1947 method, but also earlier European 1860s/1870s method of making workwear also the single needle method.
I’m lucky I have a vast archive of well over 2,000 vintage pieces in our own Endrime archive—some pieces which also pre-date the 1870s—so I have a lot to start with. And I’ve been buying many pieces in last 20 years for this purpose to “educate and inspire.” But for me to write a complete textbook, I need to visit as many denim archives and explore as many ways workwear construction and denim jeans have been made.
This is our diary and some highlights from our Endrime design team’s summer 2022 denim inspiration trip to North America.
July 9 – We land in LA. Within 10 mins of getting to our hotel, we are joined by Amy Leverton and fellow designer Nimish Gadhia, who we studied with back at university, and head to a Levi’s x Reece Cooper party. 
July 9 – We end the day with sunset drinks looking at LA skyline. 
July 10 – We start at 6 a.m. and head to the Rose Bowl. This is one of the denim inspiration pilgrimage’s hot spots. 
July 10 – I knew in recent years most of the good sellers had moved on, but I was not disappointed. I ended up buying over 15 kg of vintage and a few rare repro denim pieces by Mike Harris, which I was overjoyed to find. 
July 10 – More Rose Bowl finds. 
July 10 – We went back to the hotel then met up at Amy’s studio and went round her local area of Silver Lake for more shopping, followed by hike up to see Hollywood sign. 
July 11 – We started the day visiting Vernon Area and seeing our good friend Maurzio Donadi. We have known Maurzio for over 20 years, so it was nice to see his LA showroom and office. All we can say to any designers try and meet him and see this space—it’s truly inspirational! 
July 11 – We then met with the Bossa team who were in LA also—Besim, Burcu and Sule. 
July 11 – I dropped off a few samples I had made for Bossa using their colored cotton concept. They have a showroom located in the ROW DTLA, which was a super place to visit. 
July 11 – We ended our day hanging out with Amy again and saw her Denim Dudes studio nearby. 
July 11 – We also checked out a few more stores—Dr. Collectors and Self Edge being some of the highlights. 
July 12 – We started our morning checking out Saitex’s new LA factory. We have visited their award-winning Vietnam factory, and LA was no disappointment—state-of-the-art, all housed in a single location—cut and sew and sustainable finishing. Definitely the best we have seen in this part of the world. 
July 12 – We also managed to visit Artistic Milliners’ SFI Star Fades washing facility, which was great to see. 
July 12 – We ended the day with more vintage shopping, this time visiting Zip Stevensons’ workshop—trying not to buy too much. It was also this day we visited FedEx and sent a 23 kg box home full of vintage. 
July 13 – We headed out of LA in the morning and went to San Francisco. After arriving, we went across the river to Oakland and visited our friend Jeremy from Standard and Strange shop. 
July 13 – Before we could settle, we headed to fellow denim designer’s workshop August Larson. We will be doing a number of sewing workshops later in the year with August in his studio in collaboration with Standard and Strange, so this was a chance to meet the him and see the space. Of course, any chance to sew I did. I did a one-piece fly workshop for August as he was interested in my method of sewing—of course I obliged. 
July 13 – We then headed back to Standard and Strange shop and in the evening, and I did my denim history/denim future talk. While planning our USA trip, I was asked by Jeremy if I could do a talk in his Oakland and New York Stores. 
July 13 – This was mostly to B2C, so it was a joy to update the public on many things about our industry—plus it gave them a chance to ask questions. 
July 13 – I also managed to pick up a rare Ooe Yofukuten duck sample, which was a total treat with a fourth variation of the continuous one-piece fly—something I will document in my denim making book! 
July 14 – One of the highlights of the entire trip was visiting the Levi’s archive. This entire West Coast trip was all about this day. We were extremely lucky and honoured to have spent over two hours in the archive with Tracey Panek, the Levis historian. 
July 14 – We manged to see a number of rarest pieces Levi’s has, and I documented them for our upcoming denim book. 
July 14 – We then met with fellow denim designer and educator Julian Prince Dash. We have been friends for many years, so it was lovely to finally meet him. The next morning, Julian took us to San Francisco denim manufacturing cut and sew factory called Sky Blue, where a number of U.S. brands make their denim garments. 
July 16 – We hit a few more vintage shops and saw an exhibition at Legion of Honor Museum. 
July 19 – Now in New York, we had breakfast with the one and only Tricia Carey, then went to our first meeting with Cone Denim. 
July 19 – We also saw Soorty Showroom and met the wonderful Loren Cronk. 
July 19 – We manged to hit a few more important denim stores—RRL and Blue in Green were some of the highlights. 
July 20 – Day one of Kingpins New York. We met clients and caught up with denim friends. We also saw an amazing archive by Monique Buzy Pucheu. 
July 21 – Kingpins New York day two. After the show we went to Special Denim Art exhibition by AGI Denim. 
July 22 – We visited Danielle Elsener, zero waste denim master, in her zero waste factory in Brooklyn. We also took along friends Cone Denim’s Pierette and Soorty’s Ebru and Eda to see the amazing studio. 
July 24 – We arrived in Canada. We headed to Niagara Falls and did some vintage shopping 
July 25 – We met with fellow denim designer Ben Viapiana. We saw his studio and filmed him making a jean. We also headed to vintage sewing machine shops. 
July 27 – We met our amazing colleague and friend Ani Wells. We also went vintage shopping around Toronto and met with vintage specialist Rogerio from Flashback Vintage. 
July 29 – Aug. 4 – We ended our trip and went to two locations in Mexico on a six-day film shoot for Cone Denim.