EP54: The Founders Talk T-Shirts

Sons of Selvedge Podcast

The Sons of Selvedge founders reunite for a catch-up episode, sharing personal updates ranging from Austin's two-step dance scene and Europe

Key takeaways

• David explores Austin's microclimate two-step dance scene, noting its European immigrant roots in Polish, Czech, and German traditions.
• Elliot visits the Eastman Leather factory in Devon to shoot for John Lofgren, highlighting Gary's obsessive reproduction of WWII-era A2 jackets.

Main topics

• Austin two-step dance culture
• European immigrant influences on American Western wear

Notable quotes

It's American, but it's European at the same time, which is kind of cool.

Conclusion

Listeners gain practical insights into heritage t-shirt selection, fabric

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) All right. Hello, Denimheads, and welcome to the 54th episode of the Sons of Selvage podcast, a podcast where a group of friends get together to talk about heritage goods. Today, we'll be doing a bit of a founder's catch-up and then just deep diving into a discussion around t-shirts. So I hope that's helpful for everyone this warm and toasty time of year. So I've gotten recently into two-step dancing since I moved back to Austin, and more specifically, Austin regional two-step dancing. So in short, there's like a two-step dance that like most people in America would know and specifically anyone in Texas. But in that kind of two-step dancing, you're kind of like moving around the dance floor a bunch, like a waltz or like a polka. But because all the dance floors in Austin are super tiny, they've made this custom version of it where you stay in one place and you end up doing swing dancing type moves as opposed to like moving around the floor. And it's usually either to like a live. country band or like a live kind of like blues or rock band. It's actually kind of fun, but both because it's, I'm learning something new, which I've never done before, but also because like, there's like super cool style. Women will wear these like really cool vintage pieces and even sometimes dancing in like lingerie because it's just so hot, like a corset or something, right? With a dress. And then also the dudes will have cool vintage Western wear, you know, rockabilly kind of vibes. And if all comes. Together, I might even try and take a little YouTube video kind of showcasing the different fashion and styles of the Austin two-step scene. Speaker 3 (1:34) That's awesome man, that sounds really good. How long have you been doing it? Speaker 2 (1:39) Just a couple months now, taking some basic classes, taking a couple intermediate classes. I can do some of the basic moves. And you kind of start kind of like in a slow dance, but then you change to where you're holding your two hands and you start like spinning around and doing swing dance type. It's really interesting because it's like this kind of only, like even if I go to Houston or Dallas or San Antonio, they do the like version of two-step that everyone knows where you move around. So it's like really like this little microclimate. And Speaker 5 (2:07) it's like only in Austin, which is kind of cool. Speaker 6 (2:12) What kind of music? Speaker 2 (2:15) Primarily kind of country rock. There's like a genre here called outlaw country. So if you know like Willie Nelson. his kind of like wheelhouse of like it's like country but it's not the twangy Nashville Tennessee stuff it's more rock more Neil Young a couple particular artists that I like One guy's named Aaron McDonald. He's kind of a metal guy from Portland that found his way to Austin and got into country. Now there is a dude named Hayden Butler, which I might actually be able to get him on the podcast. Lo and behold, he made his own suit for his wedding out of a white cotton twill. And he got his own natural indigo and made the dye and did a discharge dye with different fish and animals and stuff on his wedding suit. So he showed it to me. I was like, dude, I got to interview you about this. Speaker 3 (3:06) That's really cool. So alongside you've got the music, you've got the clothing, is there any other kind of parts to the scene? Speaker 2 (3:15) Yeah, it's interesting because the dancers, I'm kind of just learning vicariously as a newbie, but the dancers will follow a particular band they like and they'll go to whatever venue that band is playing at. So that's almost groupies. But groupies for the purposes of I'm going to go there to dance, just one band. And there's some old school honky tonks and kind of country western dance halls that have been around for 150 years that go back to German immigrants or Czech, Polish immigrants. But then there's also this kind of new influx of like more recently open honky tonks that are kind of somewhere in between a dive bar and a rock venue with wooden floors. So just these spaces are also super cool where you're kind of hanging out. listen to music, people are dancing, you're chilling around the exterior and Just noting people with amazing style, whether it's really cool cowboy boots, really cool Western shirts, and almost always people are wearing like cool vintage pieces. Speaker 3 (4:10) Sounds great. Speaker 2 (4:11) Yeah, it'd be fun. Maybe someday if you guys ever visit Austin, I'll have to take y'all to get the, like the real honky tonk scene experience. I Speaker 4 (4:19) love that. Sounds very American to sure. Speaker 2 (4:23) Well, it is, but it's interesting because it's, it's American, but it's also European immigrants. Cause not to go down like too much of a rabbit hole, but. I'm finding out that most of these American cultures, things are all from the European immigrants. So like Texas barbecue comes directly from Germans that came to Central Texas and brought their cooking style. Or all the country Western dancing, there's a lot of like Polish, Czech, German, Swedish, and Norwegian immigrants that all came to Central Texas and they brought their dancing. So like you'll see people doing polka dancing. You'd see that. in Eastern Europe so that it's American, but it's, it's, it's European at the same time, which is kind of cool. Speaker 3 (5:00) Yeah. I remember reading a couple of years ago, um, cause there was quite a few articles around, uh, Western wear at that point. And it all makes sense. Like a lot of the, uh, the Western shirts and things like that were directly inspired by Eastern European, like folk clothing and like the intricate embroidery and things like that. And it just, it makes sense. But until, you know, Speaker 6 (5:23) it Speaker 3 (5:23) does kind of. connects the dots it's just like okay that's that's what you know that's what that is related Speaker 2 (5:30) to that did you listen to that stitch down episode where they interviewed that lady i think she's up in like in canada that wrote a book about the history of the cowboy boot Speaker 2 (5:41) I'm not sure if you heard that episode. They interviewed her and there's a whole book on it. But she was saying that all of the intricate stitching that goes up the shaft on a cowboy boot, they think they've traced it back to Russian embroidery designs. And they think they now know that like Russian tailors brought that over to the US. Speaker 3 (5:57) Interesting. I remember listening to a podcast with her when I think she was talking about some of the history of boots, but I might have been older because I think she's been on a couple of times, right? Speaker 2 (6:07) Yeah, this is the one they did this year. Okay. It's because you published a book finally. Yeah. Speaker 3 (6:13) Yeah, that sounds interesting. I need to check that one out. Speaker 2 (6:17) Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's crazy just to see how many Americans have this strong identity, but it's all other people's identities from around the world just mixed in a big pot. Speaker 4 (6:26) It makes sense, right? It's a young country. Yeah. Yeah, it's an Speaker 2 (6:30) interesting place, but a weird place in a lot of ways, but I won't go there. Yeah, Speaker 3 (6:35) yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 (6:39) How about you, Elliot? What Speaker 4 (6:39) have you been up to? Speaker 3 (6:42) What have I been up to? I mean, most of the summer was in Poland, so we spent that time on the lake. And yeah, I guess like we've been back a couple of weeks, so just kind of settling back into London life. One of the kind of interesting bits that Tom and I were just a part of was the shoot for... John Lofgren. We were shooting the spring, summer new pieces that they will be introducing and part of that was visiting the Eastman factory in Devon. which has been on my list of places to visit for a number of years and just the opportunity to be able to do as part of a job shooting John Lofgren is just like, you know, this kind of... dream gig for me. So yeah, that was fantastic to see the factory which they've recently moved into. I think it was about 18 months, Gary said that they've been in there. So it was really interesting to see the operation, how they're making the jackets, because it's all made in-house. And one of the differences between other factories is that The machinists make the jacket from start to scratch. So once they've been handed over all the patterned cutout pieces, which have been skived and everything like that, they will do one by one. So yeah, that was interesting to view and to kind of pull the curtain kind of back. on that which was downstairs and then upstairs is where the showroom is where you've got you know a great collection of all the you know ready to wear jackets as well as the vintage pieces that gary's collected over you know decades and yeah he's got like little corners for us for japanese for german you know as well as the the masters of the air kind of showpiece kind of that's been getting a lot of limelight for them. So yeah, that was super interesting. And then interviewing John and Gary at the same time and talking about Speaker 2 (8:50) their Speaker 3 (8:51) backgrounds and how they've met, how they collaborated over the years. Yeah, that was definitely a highlight, I think, over the last few months. Speaker 2 (9:02) I've heard the name Eastman primarily as it pertains to the tanker boot they did with Lofgren and those kinds of things, but I haven't. I actually didn't have much awareness of them as like a standalone brand. So do I understand correctly, they've been basically producing leather jackets in the UK since back to World War II? Like what was kind of their main... Not Speaker 3 (9:23) World War II, but I think Gary, I want to say he started maybe in the late 80s or around the 80s. But yeah, he's been reproducing leather jackets from that World War II era for decades now. He started with the A2, which is the jacket that he kind of really loves because from movies, from old photographs and things like that, he got really inspired by seeing those jackets and wanting to recreate that because as we all know, some vintage pieces you can buy, but you might not necessarily want to wear because you want to preserve those pieces. And with leather jackets, after a while... they start to get a lot more sensitive in terms of wear and tear, depending on how it's been kept, what's been used. So, yeah. So now, you know, he's built up his collection of leather jackets that, you know, from B3s to A2s and kind of everything in between. So there's even like a biker range called ELMC, which has like, Speaker 7 (10:35) yeah, more Speaker 3 (10:35) kind of... bike lead clothing and also John helps John Lofgren helps produce some of the clothing like jeans and sweatshirts and t-shirts and things like that for for Eastman so but in the UK they're making the leather jackets Speaker 6 (10:52) Hmm. Super cool. Speaker 3 (10:56) And the level that they go to is, I mean, the Japanese are obsessed. Gary is like two to three times more obsessed than the Japanese. Speaker 7 (11:06) In Speaker 3 (11:06) terms of sourcing the right leather, sourcing the right, you know, the zips and everything like that. He would make trips to, you know, to the States to go to see like... specific libraries where he would be able to see where the contracts for those jackets were, be able to dig up specific details of who made them, how they made them, which just the Japanese wouldn't be able to do because of the language barrier. So yeah, it's kind of like one man's obsession of doing things to the kind of nth degree. Speaker 2 (11:44) Yeah, I just spotted the background on their website, eastmanleather.com, and I went and found it. I was like, oh yeah, I've never been here. I feel like this is something I should know about, but this is totally new information for me. Speaker 3 (11:56) Yeah, yeah, definitely. If you haven't checked out, they've got a variety of jackets which you could choose from, and they fit, I think, a Western body really well as well. So sometimes you have to size up for things, depending on your body type. Yeah, you've got some great options there. Speaker 4 (12:16) Nice. Talking about traveling that side of the country, I did see that you went to Totnes as well a little while ago, Ilya. Is Speaker 3 (12:23) that right? I did, I did, yeah. What did you think of it? I loved it. I really loved Devon. I've been to Plymouth in my early 20s, visiting a friend at university, but that was my kind of only experience and I didn't really travel around. Speaker 3 (12:40) This year, I think around Easter time, we traveled there and explored kind of Dartmoor, Tottenhairs and kind of all the surrounding little towns. And it's one of my favorite kind of corners of the country that I've been to. And I really want to explore more. I think people are lovely, very friendly, open and, you know, the hospitality is incredible. And yeah, the towns themselves got real character. And yeah, at certain points I was like, okay, this is like Italy, this is like Croatia. Some really nice spots there. So yeah, I really loved it and I'd definitely be travelling more that way. Speaker 4 (13:23) What surprised me, or maybe not surprised me, but yeah, it did surprise me is that people are just so creative over there. It seems like every person does something with their hands, you know, like painting or whatever. All the shops are so unique, like you don't see an H &M or, you know, all those big chains in the towns. And yeah, it's just so cool, really cool to see. Speaker 3 (13:48) Yeah, we came across so many different... crafts people there there was there was one lady who was from london had kind of moved back or moved over there and yeah she was creating incredible ceramics and pottery and bits and pieces like that we on the high street in tottenham is actually we found a lady who was i think in her late 80s who had at one point had a little workshop in London, screen printing. She had about 20 people working for her. And now she kind of, again, moved to Totnes, just having a little workshop in the backyard of the shop. She kind of, it like led us through the shop into her home and into her workshop and just kind of showed like what she was doing. And she was like, she had some really interesting bits and selling it like. for 20 pounds, 30 pounds. So we were like, okay, we like really want to support. So we grabbed some pieces and yeah, it was really interesting to see that. And like the high street hadn't been like totally ruined, like a Speaker 2 (14:56) lot of places Speaker 3 (14:57) in the country, which for me is always such a shame when we're traveling about, when you're just seeing like, you know, your normal, your betting shops and like, Speaker 4 (15:07) you know. Yeah. things that ruin yeah yeah Speaker 3 (15:11) or chain shops and it's just like okay like you know we we're really missing out by not having you know creative places where people can you know start up their own shops and carry that on like we had we had before so yeah it was it was really nice to see to see that Speaker 4 (15:28) there's hope somewhere Speaker 3 (15:31) there is hope definitely and i hope that we will kind of return to that at some point when We're all kind of had it up to here with, you know, all the, all the chains. Speaker 2 (15:44) Yes. And here I am getting stoked that target stores in America now sell Marks and Spencer's products. Speaker 4 (15:51) But that's just you being nostalgic back to the UK, you know? That's allowed. We'll allow that. Speaker 2 (15:56) Unfortunately, no call on the Caterpillar cakes. Speaker 2 (16:00) Not Speaker 4 (16:00) yet. Speaker 2 (16:01) Cool. Kevin, Speaker 4 (16:02) what have you been up to? Life's been mainly dadding, really, to be honest. I can't even remember when we last did a podcast like this. Speaker 2 (16:11) I think it's Speaker 4 (16:12) roughly Speaker 2 (16:14) almost exactly three months ago. Speaker 2 (16:18) Yeah, I'm trying to kind of get these kind of like founder hangouts every quarter. So it's like roughly three months ago, we all spoke. Speaker 4 (16:23) Yeah, okay. We stayed put this summer, really. Yeah, just because Olivia is still small enough that she doesn't have to take time off in summer. She can go to daycare, so we can save a bit of money by traveling outside of the season. Plus the fact that Denmark's good months are always in the summer, so we didn't necessarily want it to go away. Speaker 5 (16:44) And Speaker 4 (16:44) it was a lovely year, so we stayed in Denmark. Apart from that, I've been trying to do a bit of reading again. I think I mentioned this ages ago, but I'm working through the X-Fans series and I've just started book number four now. So a couple of hundred pages to go and I'm halfway through, I think. But it's been good so far. I've been really enjoying it. So definitely, if you haven't read it, recommend it. I know something cool thing too Speaker 2 (17:10) is each three sets of three books is almost like a completely different plot arc as well. Obviously they're all related, but it's like something big happens, something big happens, something big happens. That's kind of nice that you have across nine books that kind of keep it interesting. Speaker 4 (17:23) Yeah. Yeah, no, that's been good. Yeah, that's me really lately. Speaker 2 (17:30) Cool. How about you, Lex? What have you been up to? Speaker 1 (17:32) Okay. So I'd like to discuss a couple of exhibitions I've been to recently that I'd recommend to you guys and to any listeners who happen to be around. Firstly, actually, this morning I went to the Elsa Schiaparelli or I'm not sure if it's Schiaparelli or Schiaparelli exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Have any of you guys been there? It's a little bit different to our kind of end of fashion. For those of you who don't know, Schiaparelli was a contemporary of Chanel, so from the 1930s onwards. And she was known for doing collaborations with various artists, so worked with Salvador Dali quite a lot, and I think Picasso even too. But yeah, it's at the V &A. It's a really interesting exhibition. They've got some really beautiful old pieces, like the raft behind her garments. They must have been quite shocking at the time because, you know, she did dresses inspired by Salvador Dali, which in the 1930s would have been kind of seen as completely bonkers. But actually the garments have aged really well. And I think the exhibition's come out because they've got a new, well, newish, like about six or seven years ago, creative director called Daniel Roseberry, who's basically been dressing all the celebrities. So like Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa and people like that, kind of an even... kind of taken it to a new level the new stuff for me is a little bit kind of bonkers and a bit over the top but then I guess if you've got this brand that was known for being I guess revolutionary where do you take it further for a modern audience so yeah I'd recommend that to anyone who's in London but the other one I went to so I just got back from holiday in Andalusia and Found just completely by random that in Malaga they've got a museum called it's I've had to note it down it's the Museum of Automobiles de la Moda so basically the fashion and car museum so if any of you like clothing again it's more high-end designer clothing and beautiful old cars this is the place for you and it's completely completely bonkers I've no idea how it started or why they thought it'd be a good idea to put cars and clothes in the same place but Yeah, if any of you find yourself in Malaga, I would recommend seeing it. Speaker 2 (19:47) What if it's like one of those private collectors that has a bunch of cars and a bunch of cool clothes and they just donate them to the city or something? I Speaker 1 (19:53) guess so, yeah. The museum started when you first walked in. The first car was from around 1900, one of the first cars. And they had an outfit from the same era next to it. But this kind of makes sense. You're kind of showing the clothing and the cars, how they evolved. But then after that, it seemed to just... The cars were in quite obvious sections. They had historic ones. They had a section on mini cars. They had a bit about... hot rods say a section for like in english design but then the fashion that was with it didn't necessarily follow the theme as such so it's a little bit random but i would say even obviously from a fashion enthusiast point of view the cars were the more interesting bit however i think beautiful and well designed the garment is when you kind of place it next to you know a gigantic hot rod from the you know american hot rod The garments maybe don't quite compare, if you see what I mean. But it's still well worth a visit if anyone finds themselves on holiday in Malaga. I'd also recommend Speaker 2 (20:50) Malaga. Malaga will forever hold a painful place in my life because I remember being on holiday in Malaga the night of the Brexit vote. We're like at our hotel, we're like, oh, this will be fine, it'll be fine. Next morning we're like, we can't walk outside, or at least we can't speak English outside. Speaker 1 (21:07) You need to go out with like a big Texan t-shirt on just so people knew you weren't English that day. Speaker 2 (21:14) Yeah, they have some cool contemporary art and kind of modern art museums there right in the middle by that kind of big concrete river. There's a really cool modern art museum and some kind of like weird quirky ones off there. It's a super cool city. Speaker 1 (21:26) It's also, it's the home of Pablo Picasso as well. So they've got an amazing Pablo Picasso museum there as well, which is really good. So yeah, it's a really beautiful city. It was really nice and I would thoroughly recommend it as well as, yeah. the Car and Couture Museum. Speaker 1 (21:46) But yeah, that's pretty much everything that I've been up to. I'm just doing the alphabet in my head. Ricky, what have you been up to? Speaker 5 (21:56) Well, just like you Lex, I just came back from holiday as well where I finally got hold, I