During the summer of 2013 photographer Sven Eselgroth (sveneselgroth.com) embarked on a four month motorbike trip around Scandinavia, to meet up with some of the regions most exciting fashion labels. He spent his time interviewing the head designers, documenting their work place and shooting their AW'13 collections. This is the third of four editorials from Sven's trip to be featured on ACM.
Livid Jeans is a one hundred percent handmade denim brand. Jens Olav Dankersen founded the brand in Trondheim, Norway in May 2010 with a focussed vision to become the leading custom jeans maker of Scandinavia. Three years down the road, Livid Jeans is introducing online sales of their Handmade Line, crafted with love and care by Jens Olav himself. ''All jeans from the Handmade Line are created locally at our own factory, on old one hundred percent non-automated machinery, which demands that we use our hands a lot at every stage of the production. The machines are old but strong, and they sew beautifully.
Our staff today consists of only two employees, so our jeans have only been touched by a maximum of four hands before they reach the end consumer. I’m always trying to follow my own personal preferences in how I’d like it done, and that – in my mind – is the best way to do it. I personally like the way they name their fitting models after personal friends of theirs: Edvard, Roald and Jakob.
Recently, Livid have started a Retail line, which is a collection of denim limited to four hundred pairs. What makes this line a little more special is that the designers will also be running a project called “The Inside Story” in connection with it, which will
document each wearer’s journey.
An Interview with Jens Olav Dankersen
Where are Livid Jeans produced?
Products from our retail line are created in a small family owned factory in Barcelos, Portugal by only five people, and crafted on non-automated industrial machines. Products from our handmade line are made locally at our factory floor in Trondheim, Norway. They've
only ever been touched by four hands, and we hand-make them on non-automated industrial machines.
What kind of fabrics do you use?
For our retail line, we only use premium narrow shuttle loom selvage denim and wide loom non-selvage denim from Japan and Turkey. For our handmade line, we use narrow shuttle loom selvage qualities from Cone Mills, North Carolina, USA. Everything we make in-house is cut from Cone Mills denim. Our Japanese fabrics are currently only used in the retail line, but we’re looking into using some here as well. The thing with Cone Mills denim is that it’s a very tight weave, so it takes longer to show signs of wear. The Japanese fabric is a looser weave, so it tends to tear a little more quickly, but when I sell a pair of Livid's, there’s a lifetime guarantee. I’ll repair them for free. If it needs to be sent in, the shipping costs are still in place, but the repair itself is free.
We’re currently doing some washes for our next summer collection, based on a wear-and-tear concept called “The Inside Story”. We’ll basically be replicating true-to-life wear and tear. If one of my friends came in wearing a pair of Livids, and I saw them and thought “I want to reproduce that look”, I would send the jeans to Portugal and they would replicate it. Then we’d take the story of how the garment came to look the way it does, and we’d print it on the inside pocket. Every wash from Livid will have a story behind it, making it a more authentic product. Each wash will have meant something to somebody, and will have taken a long time to create.
Does your brand include designs for women?
We are working on a woman’s fit. It’s actually going to be unisex, so we’re working with some stretch fabrics, because it’s so hard to sell unisex jeans in one hundred percent cotton. We have to use some commercial fabrics as well, with a stretch to them. Not too much, just for comfort, but we will still be using selvage denim. I think it’s impossible to use the same fabrics for women’s jeans as with men’s normally. If a woman prefers a boyfriend fit, our models Jakob and Edvard may do the trick for now.
Why did you decide to make a unisex fit?
It’s a challenge. Women’s jeans have more curves, and we’re trying not to compromise the fit by trying to get it to work on a male frame too, but I think
we’re just going to need to take some time over it. A lot of women want to
wear Livid jeans, so we’ve decided to work on it. It’s going to be skinny, or
super-skinny for a guy. It’s still in development, so we haven’t tried it on
many girls just yet. I think targeting women is very hard because they’re
extremely focussed on the fit and the placement of the back pocket.
Everything has to be right. I think our marketing technique appeals well to
women, but it’s going to be a hard process, I think. I also have male customers
who think my current fits are too wide and are looking for a super-skinny.
You currently have three fits: Edvard – the skinny fit, Jakob – the slim straight
fit and Roald – the tapered fit. What about custom made garments?
We sell standard sizes on our web-shop and also from our store. We do some
bespoke jeans as well, but only for customers who are able to attend a fitting
session. The customer tries on a pair in a standard size, and then we do the
fitting from that by making various adjustments. Some of our customers want
a pair just as they are, because bespoke jeans can be quite expensive. When we
make our standards sizes, we are able to cut ten pairs at once, but with
bespoke pairs we have to create the pattern from one layer of denim and cut
the jeans by hand, then we have to label them, then we go into production, so
the process is much longer. When we finish a pair of bespoke jeans, we ask
the customer to come in and try them on to see if they’re satisfied with the fit,
because if they’re not, we’ll start afresh.
We do the hemming when the
customer comes in, so they feel like they can join in with the process and
witness the finishing touches. They don’t have to pay until after they’re
satisfied, because it’s quite an expensive pair of jeans, so it’s very important to
me that the customer is fully satisfied with the product.
All our handmade jeans are made to order, so there’s no back-stock. We can make
twelve to fifteen orders per week. On our new web-shop, the customer can
choose the size, the in-seam measurement and the waist, but they also have to
choose a production date, as we’re only able to make a certain number per
month.
How would the bespoke option work for people who can’t come to the shop?
We aren't able to do it. We have to have the whole process of taking the
measurements and seeing the fit of the jeans when they’re on, because it’s so
hard to make it right if the customer isn't here. When you buy a product at this
kind of cost, I think you’d want to make it right, because the shipping is quite
expensive as well. To the US it’s five hundred kroner, so we pay three
hundred and the customer pay two hundred.
So you make less when you sell your jeans to customers in the states. Why do
you subsidize the shipping?
I want to make our products available for more customers. We don’t want to
make products more expensive than they should be. We want to make the best
items we can at the lowest possible cost to the customer. For our shirts, for
example, we’re using a very high-quality Japanese fabric, made on shuttle-looms
using old Japanese techniques, but we’re selling them for one thousand
two hundred and ninety nine kroner. We’re just trying to make the best
products we can, and deliver them to our customers at a reasonable price.
The basic fit always adheres to one of three types, is that right? Edvard – the
skinny fit, Jakob – the slim straight fit and Roald – the tapered fit.
Yes, and we also use them as a basis for our bespoke garments. If it’s for a
skinny guy we start with the “Edvard” and we work from that. We don’t make
custom jeans from scratch, starting from the first ninety degree angle, we use
the basic patterns and make the adjustments from that. On some pairs we have
to make quite a lot of changes; making the back or front rise shorter, or
making the legs skinnier for example. That’s actually a longer process,
because by making the legs skinnier you have to adjust the rest of the fit.
There’s a point on the front and back, and in other areas of the pattern that
need to line up.
What made you decide to make a certain fit in a certain way?
It’s just based on my buddies and what would fit them well. Some of my
friends were having problems finding jeans that were a good fit. The Jakob cut
was based on a friend with a slim waist but wider thighs. I tried to make a
model that would fit him well. Jakob was the first model I made, and that
inspired the base-pattern. Then I made Edvard and Roald with that as a
starting point. They’re very different, of course, but they have the same basepattern.
I am working on a Jakob straight at the moment – slim on the top,
with a straight leg. There will be the Jakob slim and the Jakob straight, two
different cuts with the same base. If a person likes the slim but wants a wider
leg opening, he could choose the straight.
I always do test-runs, so when I’m
working on a new line I ask my buddies to wear a pair, and I’ll also wear it
myself, just to test the fittings and see that everything is as it should be. Then I
make the changes. The process usually takes a couple of months, depending
on how it goes.
It’s interesting to see how you can create garments in-house, but also
outsource a line for production elsewhere and make it work from a marketing
point of view.
I think it was very natural, being that it’s so difficult to produce everything in-house.
At the same time, though, it’s not that we’re compromising anything. I
work with the retail line all the time, and I wear its products. I have just as
much respect for that area as I do for the handmade products, and it’s very
important to me that our customers feel the same way. It’s just dependent on
the customer’s preferences whether they want a pair of jeans from the
handmade line or the retail line.
The latter is made in Portugal, but we still use
the same kind of machinery, which is only operated by four or five people.
There’s no mass production going on. The fabric and the fit are still going to
be the same.
You do some tops as well. Tell me about those.
We have Fred, our waxed canvas jacket, for starters. I apply the otter wax
myself, which takes quite a long time. About five hours for one jacket. The
fabric is from England, and what I wanted to do was sell the product un-waxed
and send a bar of wax with it, because if you do it yourself, you grow fond of
the garment; you've worked on it yourself, like polishing your shoes. I think it
looks better too, because it ends up more rough and natural than it would if it
were treated in a factory.
We make some shirts as well, but we can’t make
them in-house because our machinery’s too heavy for such light material. We
are able to work with canvas here, though. As for our upcoming products, we
have the Olav over-shirt that we’re working on right now – a garment you can
size up or down without it looking to big or small. It’s going to be outsourced
to our shirt factory too, because we don’t have the right machinery. We also
have two different denim vests.
How do you find time to do all this? Producing designs, choosing fabrics,
hand-making garments... Talk me through your day. Do you have a routine?
When I find myself inspired by an idea, I just don’t stop. If I’m making one
jacket that I particularly like, I become inspired and begin to make a different
one at the same time. I often work on two models at once. I think that’s the
reason I have a full collection after only two years.
I don’t sew all the time,
though. I get to work, sit down at my computer, answer emails and do the
administrative side of it, maybe I prepare a blog post or something I’m going
to post during the day on Instagram or Facebook, then I go and work on some
jeans for a couple of hours. It all depends on how much work we have lined
up. Then maybe I go and get on with some designs or set up the production
sheets and the orders, recording all the sizes we’ll be making per fit, trying to
analyze the sales and noting down how many pairs we have left over in each
size to determine how many we’re likely to need next time.
On Monday, I’ll
do ten things, then on Tuesday I’ll do ten different things. I try to set a time to
go home though, usually about six. I do have a girlfriend, and I think it’s
pretty hard on her that I work so much. I just try to prioritise what’s most
important to do today, and what I can do tomorrow.
I like that you sign the products, but I'm sure it’s time consuming.
It is, but I think if it’s presented like this, it feels like more of a finished
product. It makes the handmade line seem more established. You can also see
that it’s handmade, and it’s an easy solution in the long run, because it’s just a
pen and tanned vegetable leather. I also wanted to include the words
“handcrafted in Norway”, so you can see it in the shop and not just on our
website. I have a separate supplier who makes all the tags and care labels,
because I want to be able to control the quality separately. I don’t want a thin
polyester label; I want a thick canvas. I also like to control the quality of the
pocket fabric, because when you get a new pair of jeans and put your hands in
the pockets, you can get a sense of the quality of the entire garment.
One thing
I really like is working with people who are very passionate about what they
do. Our photographer love taking pictures for us, and he’s worked with us
from the start, so I think he feels the same way. We collaborate with him to
create a book called Fades of Indigo, which we produce annually to document
our different collections and let people know what we do and why, and to
show what fabrics we are using. We talk about our retail line and selvage
denim, everything along those lines.
Where did the idea for this business originally come from?
Three years ago I knew nothing at all about making jeans, about sewing or
anything. I was just very passionate about jeans and the wear process. I
remember after my first wear and tear project I was totally hooked, because I
felt I had built a relationship with that particular pair of jeans. I also began to
read about the history of jeans and the production processes, the sewing of the
garments and the manufacturing of the fabric, and everything really amazed
me. There’s so much more behind a pair of jeans than the average customer
might think. There is history in every single piece of equipment and
machinery, and just to learn how it works is exceptionally interesting. Having
the ability to make something yourself is really inspiring, and when people
appreciate something you've created, you get very proud of it.
How do you cope when a piece of machinery breaks down?
It’s very hard, but I've always been a bit of a dreamer. When I first started, I
could see how the company would be ten years into the future. When I run
into a problem, I just think about where I'm going to be in ten years, and that
way I find the ability to relax and fix everything. To me, it’s just more work. I
just say to myself “OK, I just have to live with the fact that I’ll probably have
to work on this machine for the next twenty hours.” Then I just try to keep
sane. Another part of my motivation, is that I know it will help me to improve
my understanding of that particular machine, and that there is always a
solution that I'm able to reach. When I've done it once, I won’t have to do it
again, because I’ll have learnt how to fix the problem. You learn as you work,
and the more I learn, the easier it will be the next time.
What is your long-term business plan?
Our goal is to be able to move production to Norway. When I first started, a
lot of people said “Jens, you can’t do this! It’s impossible. That’s the reason
other companies are moving production out of Norway, so why are you
establishing your business here and trying to expand it while everyone else is
closing down?” But I think that’s the important thing – saying “I’m going to
do it anyway, and I’m going to make it work”. I think that’s what makes Livid
so special, and helps us to compete in the market. This is a hard market in
which to survive as a small brand.
At some point during the last two years, you must have realized that you had
to find some way to make the business more profitable. Was this the plan all
along – to have production elsewhere so that you could make a profit, or did
you realize it was a necessity later on?
We made a video about our handmade line a couple of months ago, and
someone came to me and said “This is just a gimmick. You’re not making
jeans in Norway – you've just bought a couple of old machines and made a
video to generate more sales for the retail line.” Some people might think that
our plan is to gain respect by making jeans in Norway to generate more
publicity for the line we produce in Portugal. Honestly, I make jeans here
because it’s my passion to produce garments in a country where hand-crafting
is a dying trade, in order to inspire others to use their hands again. I will
always produce in Norway, but for me to be able to do that I also have to
produce in Portugal. I said to myself that if I was going to move production to
Portugal, I wasn't going to compromise.
In Portugal I'm still using Japanese
fabric and selvage denim – very expensive materials – but over there I'm able
to make it less pricey so I can sell a greater quantity, and sell to stores, though
the margin for that is quite low. We have to make a large quantity to make it
work.
The thing that still needs to be reconciled is that the work you’re doing here is
theoretically more a hobby than a profitable business. As the brand evolves,
what is your plan?
My plan is to expand, and when we come to a point where we can’t be here
any-more, we’ll have to move. I hope that more and more people buy the
products that are made here, so we’re able to grow and employ more workers,
and also so that we’re able to deliver more jeans to stores and consumers. It’s
all about producing correctly and effectively. I've already worked on it to a
point. We started with one machine and now we have fifteen. This is all in
under two years. We also have a full time seamstress, and hopefully we’ll
have another next year. The more we are able to produce, the further we can
lower the price and the more we can sell as a result.
So you think you’ll be able to employ Norwegian people and still create a
profit margin?
I don’t think we’ll ever be able to earn a lot of money doing this, but I think it
needs to be done. I will continue as long as I’m able, but if I come to the point
that people are no longer buying the products because they’re too expensive,
for example, I’ll be forced to close down the hand-made line. That’s just the
reality of it, though I hope it won’t happen. It’s my passion, as I’ve said, and
to be able to work in this environment – having everything under the same
roof, and having people come in and try on their newly-made pair of jeans a
couple of metres away from you, being able to let them see the finishing
touches being made and then take them straight home – you don’t experience
that anywhere else in Norway.
How did you find your new full-time seamstress?
She’s actually from Slovakia. She’s a professional seamstress and worked in a
factory over there for many years. It was very difficult to find people who
were qualified to make a pair of jeans here in Norway. No one makes anything
anymore. A lot of people applied for the job, but when they came to speak
with me, they said “I’ve never sewn before, but I’d like to try it out.”
Production was already very expensive, and so for me to have to spend time
teaching someone how to make a pair of jeans well, would take months.
We
had to find someone who had been making clothes for many years, and who
enjoyed themselves doing that. In Norway, there were very few jobs available
that corresponded with our new employee’s experience and passion, which
was making clothes, so she ended up working in a kindergarten. I found that it
made me feel very proud – the fact that we were able to employ a person and
give her the opportunity to do what she wanted.
Norway is one of the most expensive places to be an employer. Were you in a
position where you could meet the expenses comfortably?
It’s been hard. I’m not able to give myself a salary. I pretty much work for
free, just taking enough to pay my rent, but as long as you’re doing something
you love, and you’re able to eat and have a roof over your head, everything’s
Ok. I think in a couple of years I’ll be able to live and work normally, so that’s
a huge motivator. When people say it’s impossible, I think “Damn – now I
really want to do it!” I think I will make it work.
Do you get any help with your marketing and promotion?
I do most things myself. I organize the production of the Fades of Indigo book
and produce all the text. I had help with the typography, the website and the
web-shop, and a good friend of mine created the video on our website, but
that’s just about it. One friend produced the site and online shop, and another
did some hand-drawings, the typography and the logo.
Do you have any techniques for marketing?
I just think “Would I appreciate seeing this?” I try to tell people about my
passion, about what I love and what I think is beautiful. That’s the way I work.
I say “This is our new machine, this is our hand-made line, and this is our
retail line. This is how we want to do it. This is our dream.” I like to make sure
everything is very open and honest. Everything about the process is made
transparent to the customer. It’s all about romanticizing hand-craft, and
everything behind making jeans. It’s not difficult though, because the process
itself is beautiful. Everything from the rolls of fabric to the excitement of
seeing the machines at work is wonderful to look at.
There are a lot of people
who have never seen anything like it before, and things people haven’t seen
before are always inspiring. I’m always surprised by all the different types of
people who come in. There are people who have never had any real passion
for denim. They’ve just been wearing a pair of jeans and not thinking about it,
but then they hear there’s someone making them locally, and they want to
have a pair for themselves because they’re good quality and they’re able to get
a say in the production stages and to do a bit of the design themselves
regarding the fit. I think that’s very special for them.
Especially if it’s for two thousand kroner. That’s not a ridiculous amount of
money.
In Euros it’s two hundred and ninety five.
That’s just under two hundred pounds (One hundred and ninety six to be
exact!), which is what you’d expect to pay for a really good pair of jeans.
For our customers based in the states we also deduct the VAT, so it’s two
hundred and ninety five Euros minus the twenty-five percent VAT. Then
we’re also able to compete with American-made products.
Have there been any times when you wondered if it was all worth it?
A lot of them. Usually problems with the machines. There has been a lot of
time spent repairing the machines and going through manuals. A lot of the
time I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just had to try and try until I got it
right. Sometimes I think “What am I doing? This is impossible!” It’s so
expensive to make jeans. If I spend nine hours trying to repair a sewing
machine, that’s quite costly. My hours are very expensive to waste fixing a
machine, because I need to spend time working in production.
The production
itself in Portugal is a full time job, just like sewing jeans is a full time job, but
if you have a passion for something, and everything’s going well, you can see
it being your job for many years to come. It keeps me going. I’m not going to
be working twenty-four hours a day for the next twenty years – it’s a lot of
work to start with, but hopefully I’ll be able pay more employees and
eventually have a regular working day! -
SE
www.lividjeans.com
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