15y: Crosscut Flannels and Chambrays.
Although we've been celebrating our 15 year anniversary thus far via collaborative projects with brands that we hold in high esteem, it was also important that we returned to our roots to create special runs of products that have been central to our brand's development.
We've made many chambray shirts over the years, and the fabric is prominent in American military wear and workwear - both of which are heavy influences in our design process. About a year and a half ago, we set out to create our own chambray fabric in Japan from the ground up; our goal was to make one unlike anything we had seen on the market before.
To achieve this, we went so far as to spec the fabric down to the yarn level and sourced a super slubby yarn which we then applied to both the warp and weft (typically, a heavy slub yarn is only applied to one or the other). Our mill in Japan then indigo dyed the yarns and wove these two selvedge chambrays exclusively for us. The result is a fabric with insane cross-hatching texture, almost like homespun linen. Because of the inconsistency of the yarn thickness, indigo shows through in countless shades of blue, which becomes especially apparent when you see the fabric up close. We made two variants: blue, which is made of indigo warp yarns and natural weft yarns, and shadow, which utilizes the same indigo warp yarns on the blue combined with black weft yarns (just like our jeans). You'll find electric blue selvedge detailing on the side gussets and inside the placket, and the shirt is finished off with pewter metal buttons. We felt that this fabric really came alive after the first wash, so each shirt has been garment rinsed and tumble dried to help bring the blues out and give the fabric a soft and broken-in feel.
The Crosscut Flannel has been a mainstay in our collection ever since we launched the first iteration in FW08; it's been in almost every collection we've produced since then. When we started brainstorming our 15y Crosscut, inspiration came specifically from the fabric we sourced for the FW14 Crosscut, known loosely as the "Teal Crosscut" for its bright cerulean color. Over the years we've both sourced and custom developed many plaid flannels, and what we love about the production capabilities of our mills in Japan are their ability to reproduce with painstaking detail the vintage coarse-weave flannel fabrics that you'd find on old Big Macs and Penney Ranchcrafts. This particular one exhibited a dense, beautiful 3D weave on the face side - and to give it unmatched comfort, we had the mill triple brush the backside to give it a soft blanket-like feel. It was one of the fastest selling shirts we ever made.
The 15y Crosscut Flannel takes the same big check pattern from FW14 and replaces the teal with yarn-dyed indigo. Look at the pattern up close and you'll see the subtle variance in color that will surely change over time as the shirt is worn and washed consistently. We elected to wash the fabric at the mill after it was woven for two reasons: to eliminate shrinkage (which can be a issue on loosely woven flannels like this one), and to give the indigo color some depth and variation. The 15y flannel fabric is custom woven in Japan, and is cut and sewn in San Francisco.
The 15y Chambrays will retail for $220, and the 15y Crosscut Flannel will retail for $265. Look for them to launch on Friday, November 16th via 3sixteen.com at noon EST. They will also release in our LA flagship and select accounts worldwide on the same day (C denotes Chambray, and F denotes Flannel):
3sixteen (Los Angeles, CA)
Berkeley Supply (Denver, CO): C+F
Blue Owl Workshop (Seattle, WA): F
East + West (St. Louis, MO): C+F
East + West (Kansas City, MO): C
Franklin & Poe (Philadelphia, PA): C
Iron Shop Provisions (Lake Charles, LA): C
Jeanslife (Winterthur, CH): C
Mildblend Supply Co (Chicago, IL): C
Milworks (Milwaukee, WI): C
Rivet & Hide (London, UK): F
Self Edge (Los Angeles, CA): C+F
Self Edge (New York, NY): C+F
Self Edge (Portland, OR): C+F
Self Edge (San Francisco, CA): C+F
Snake Oil Provisions (Long Beach, CA): C+F
Standard & Strange (Oakland, CA): C
Stuf-f (Dusseldorf, DE): C
Two Jacks Denim (Oakland, CA): F
Vestis (Pittsburgh, PA): C
Withered Fig (Online): C+F
