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NEUW’s Vintage-Inspired Jeans Bring Denim Back To Basics #nyfw

We stopped by Australia’s NEUW Denim showroom for a FW’12 preview yesterday and got schooled first-hand on what an awesome brand this is. One of three designers, Par Lundqvist, has a massive archive of almost 3,000 pieces of vintage denim. He uses them to establish foundations for the NEUW line, alongside every day denim “circumstances”. A metal ring is attached to the front left belt loop of each pair of jeans, because he once wore a wallet chain, which broke and left just a metal ring in its wake. After some time, it became a part of his jeans, and eventually part of the line.

Washes that emulate a field worker’s sun-bleached jeans (they stay dark blue beneath their belts) and denim that feels and looks like the crisp warm-air dryed jeans you pull off your laundry line in the summer are some of the anecdotal styles we saw. And while the washes are innovative, the inspiration is timeless: music, classic rock’n'roll, old school denim culture. The richly dyed men’s line could dress up James Dean or any of the early denim-clad stars of yesteryear (and they could effortlessly outfit today’s rock gods too).

The women’s denim line is a pretty direct counterpart of the men’s line, with colors and design details in place (a dart in the hem, for example). They branch out with a woven-upholstery inspired motif with great texture and rich hues, and an entire sportswear line that screams “super pretty!” without being too distracting. See for yourself!