Following up its successful event earlier this year in January, the highly respected Bread & Butter Tradeshow held it’s second, and final, segment for 2013. In an effort to emphasize the show’s ability to bring together (over 500) brands and thousands of visitors, the summer edition of Bread & Butter sported the simple theme, “CONNECT”, and was held in its homebase, Berlin, Germany.
The areas of L.O.C.K. (Labels of Common Kin) and Fire Dept. at L.O.C.K. were the meeting points for heritage wear and denim folks, and though the summer season of course brings higher temperatures, visitors were not discouraged in the slightest. Denim retailers, producers, bloggers and enthusiasts came in droves, rendering this particular edition of B&B a memorable denim experience.
We could drone on for days of the show’s immense breadth and scale, but for now we will focus on the two areas, heritage menswear and denim, and cover some of the more remarkable brands we stumbled upon.
3Sixteen
A fan favorite that most denim heads are well accustomed to, numerous European menswear and denim boutiques are beginning to turn to 3sixteen as the leading U.S. denim brands, such as Burg & Schild and Vater und Sohn.
For this most recent B&B segment, 3sixteen presented a few new denim models, including an eye-catching brown weft, as well a great selection of shirts, heavy cotton t-shirt, and incredibly soft hoodies. The duo behind the New York brand, Andrew Chen and Johan Lam, also brought along some of their collaborative and well-worn denim, with Lam hinting at his favorite model, the 3sixteen+ 21BSP.
The Flat Head and R.J.B.
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Another crowd pleaser, The Flat Head and Real Japan Blues was one of the most visited booths in the Fire Dept. section of the L.O.C.K. area. Daniel Cizmek, of DC4, leads the company’s European distribution efforts and thus was helped in showcasing a variety of their boots, shirts, leather jackets, leather goods and, of course, denim jeans. The upcoming collection is sure to not disappoint The Flat Head fans, and denim enthusiasts alike.
Daniel Cizmek with The Flat Head crew; one of the shirts from the new collection
BIG JOHN
Led by team members Risa Saito, Kiyo Kakemizu and Ryu Adachi, BIG JOHN was featured some of their latest items, as well as a new collaboration, the Big John x Rockin’ Jelly Bean. For those unfamiliar with them, Rockin’ Jelly Bean is a japanese plastic artist who plays with rockabilly, surf-garage and pin-up images and his art can be found all around japan.
Kakemizu was rocking a pair of M106D, a slim tapered jean constructed from Faux-Slub denim(000K), and they were also exhibiting a regular straight model, the M104B, and slim straight cut, the M105D. If you missed them this time around and by chance are located in Amsterdam, be sure to stop by the show, Modefabriek, which they will also be attending.
Levis Vintage Clothing, Levi’s Made & Crafted
As expected, LVC and Levi’s Made & Crafted were as popular as ever, presenting the coveted 501s line together with the new LVC tops collection. The orange tab line was also on display, showing a few popular cuts such as the the 606 and the 615. Many tops are based on the cowboy theme, with rich shades of blue.
In traditional fashion, LVC centered part of their booth around an iconic happening of the 20th century. For B&B Connect, they chose to shine the spotlight on the denim tuxedo and “Bing’s Room”. As the story tells us, the late American singer and actor, Bing Crosby, was very fond of wearing denim jeans and jackets, even though denim jeans was heavily frowned upon in the 1950’s.
While on a hunting trip in Vancouver, Canada, Crosby and a friend were wearing entirely denim outfits and were eventually disallowed to stay at a hotel. Once Levi’s caught wind of the incident, they couldn’t help but jump in on the action and designed a denim tuxedo jacket for him. LVC still keeps a few originals in their archives and are slated to release a repro limited edition soon. To complete the outfit, LVC added a pair of denim pants.
Stay tuned for part two and our additional coverage of other brands at this summer’s Bread & Butter Connect 2013 Show.
