Making a way
His eternal optimism in a world of indigo means one of denim’s leading lights has for the first time taken the brand that started it, Daily Blue, back to the drawing board. Ever the inventor, Adriano Goldschmied’s creative spark is undimmed after five decades in the fashion game. He tells Inside Denim what’s new – and what hasn’t changed.
"Congratulations, you’ve picked the most sustainable jeans we have in-store,” is what serial creator and denim luminary Adriano Goldschmied imagines assistants at high-end boutiques will say as they ring up sales of Daily Blue, his relaunched luxury denim line from 1974, for already-besotted customers. Shipping from this January to select US retail partners new and old, including Henry Lehr in East Hampton, Newport Beach’s Michael Nusskern and Valentines of Austin, this initial collection includes premium fabrics from Kaihara and Kurabo in Japan, plus Greensboro-based Cone Denim, which today manufactures in Mexico and China.
Although Mr Goldschmied, who championed the use of Lenzing’s biodegradable Tencel lyocell fibres in denim as far back as the early 1990s, does not envision that his sustainable practices will ultimately drive sales, these remain unquestionably baked into Daily Blue’s design ethos – from all angles. Now as before, he tells us, it is instead the changing room mirror that has final say on whether a customer does or does not buy his jeans.
A special place
The original Daily Blue called the fashionable resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy’s Dolomitic Alps home. Having started life as something of a spin-off from Mr Goldschmied’s King’s Shop, which found its niche among the contemporary international jet set, the womenswear brand’s denim jeans retailed for what would nowadays equate to roughly $1,000. Despite minimal fashion experience, the Italian-born designer did know his customer. They were “looking for something really unique”, he remembers, something their peers wouldn’t have, and they “didn’t really care” about price.
In a market dominated by more utilitarian denims by Levi’s, Lee and Wrangler, Daily Blue immediately stood out for its fresh, fashion-first point of view, with Mr Goldschmied and then business partner Ambrogio Dalla Rovere pushing bold colours like hot pink, as well as “new fits, new shapes and innovative materials”. Not to mention quality fabrics and construction. Another advantage afforded by the label’s well-travelled clientele: it quickly gained fans from Japan to the US, the UK (whose music and fashion scenes inspired Daily Blue’s early designs) and beyond.
Looking at today’s denim-filled catwalks, Mr Goldschmied says he feels a sense of mission accomplished. Well-known in denim circles as the industry’s “godfather”, a moniker thought to have first been given to him by late Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, he would go on to bring numerous jeanswear brands to market after stepping away from the first iteration of Daily Blue in the 1980s, including Diesel, Replay, Gap 1969, Goldsign, AG Jeans, A Gold E and Goldie, also lending a hand to help develop the collections of others such as Evisu, Citizens of Humanity and Edwin. Mr Goldschmied has been quoted as estimating that the total number of denim brands he has played a role in either founding or forming exceeds fifty.
The trajectory of the designer’s career thus far certainly confirms his express desire to keep moving forward in the spirit of “making something new”, avoiding any temptation to merely replicate past successes. This makes the reintroduction of Daily Blue an exception to the rule, which Mr Goldschmied traces back to the feelings he had when first assembling the collections that would not only transform him into a bona fide denim designer, but also bring premium, trend-led denim to global attention. Daily Blue set up shop in a special place in his heart, he shares, and he would like to repeat that.
Ahead of the curve
“The world is changing very, very fast and I would like to be a part of this change,” Mr Goldschmied explains. “In 1974, I was part of what you could call a revolution [in denim]. Today, I’d like to play the same game.” He also opines that the premium segment has become a little bit boring, in his words. The only hint of what once was in the current Daily Blue line-up is the line’s brightly coloured, embroidered sunrise logo. Though “months and months” were spent trying to come up with a new design, the original emerged from the brainstorming process unbeaten. Still atypically cheerful in appearance against a sea of vintage-inspired branding, Mr Goldschmied describes its bold hues as signifiers of his own optimistic vision for the label’s relaunch, adding that it has been well-received by buyers so far.
A key difference, this time around, centres on the brand’s glocal sourcing and production strategies. To further lower the impact of its fashions, Daily Blue will develop continent-specific manufacturing plans for its collections, working only with suppliers based within each region in which it intends to sell. When the brand re-enters the European market, for example, it will restrict its sourcing to locally made materials and solely partner with Europe-based cut-and-sew factories. Mr Goldschmied suggests that the search for collaborators is further along in Asia-Pacific and has previously indicated that Vietnam may serve as the label’s regional production base. One anomaly is the US launch collection. Though 100% of the manufacturing process took place at Star Fades International (SFI), Artistic Milliners’ laundry and design hub in Los Angeles, the majority of materials used, most notably fabrics, had to be imported due to the absence of denim-making in the country, at least at scale.
The designer frames working with SFI as “a special kind of partnership”. Its facility, close to Daily Blue’s own headquarters inside the offices of Mr Goldschmied’s Genious Group design studio, boasts “all the technology needed” to test new processes and innovations, he states, all with an emphasis on sustainability. They are currently exploring some “revolutionary” products from Italian chemicals company Soko together, he reveals. Meanwhile, Manifattura Italiana Cucirini has supplied 100% Tencel threads and the brand has used cellulose-based bioplastic buttons in place of conventional metallic fastenings. Mr Goldschmied conjectures that Daily Blue is “probably the first in the world” to work with this kind of button, said to be made from a new material. His time designing a Jeans Redesign-inspired circular denim collection for Parisian fashion house Chloé, which debuted early last year, only entrenched his belief that high-quality jeans can – and, for end-of-life recycling purposes, perhaps should – be made without traditional buttons and zipper components, although he later acknowledges the necessity to make small compromises every day.
New horizons
Daily Blue’s initial US offering comprises several jeans styles (Mr Goldschmied is positive about the end of skinny jeans’ grip on the market), in addition to denim overalls, jackets, shorts, shirts and vests, including a paisley-print version that appears as though stonewashed in a clear, yet subtle, nod to the brand’s 1970s beginnings. While he still shops vintage himself, the designer has not had a personal archive in around 30 years. He prefers taking a blank canvas approach and tells Inside Denim that “fashion is more important than vintage” for him nowadays. Wherever he is in the world, his eye is on the street and how people are dressing to go about their daily business. He also wants to entice customers back into stores by cultivating emotional connections through innovative fabrics, fits and details that he believes can prove harder to find nowadays amid the near endless possibilities of the internet. The team is already pursuing “more radical” and responsible denims with this in mind, such as some “very good fabrics from Bossa”.
Following half a century in the fashion business, his instinct is that now is a good time to launch. Bad times always bring a silver lining, he says. And digital communication tools, particularly when it comes to meeting with suppliers and obtaining information, has made things much more efficient and democratic. The hope is for Daily Blue to establish itself as a small, but leading label, not only in terms of creative direction and aesthetics, but also when it comes to pursuing new and improved production methods. Mr Goldschmied, driving things forward once again, is undaunted by the challenges that inevitably lie ahead. “I like to play difficult games; the easy ones are too easy. It is not the time for easy games.”
Adriano Goldschmied reviews samples of Turkish denim mill Bossa’s hemp-blended fabrics in his office. He is now largely based in California, having first moved there in the 1990s.
All Photos: Daily Blue
