What comes after skinny jeans? Luxe denim line Jean Atelier has a few fancy ideas
For almost as long as he can remember, entrepreneur and designer Jerome Dahan has had his finger on the pulse of the denim world — initially as a teenager in Montreal when he fashioned his first pair of jeans, then as a game-changing designer for major labels such as Lucky Brand and Guess in the ’80s and ’90s.
As the co-founder of Seven for All Mankind, Dahan pioneered premium denim with his signature five-pocket jeans in 1999, before delving deeper into the contemporary market with the launch of Citizens of Humanity four years later, perfecting the super-stretch skinny jean along the way. Yet 40 years on, the Paris-born, L.A.-based Dahan still wakes up with a renewed passion for his industry.
“As soon as I get to the office, I start looking at fabrics and call the wash house to work on new washes and new developments,” says Dahan, who’s channeling that energy into his latest denim-driven line, Jean Atelier, in tandem with longtime collaborator and designer Noam Hanoch. “I get excited.”
Featuring elevated denim paired with luxury sportswear pieces, the ready-to-wear label draws from Dahan’s denim background and Hanoch’s designer sensibility in equal measure. Priced from $425 to $1,875, the inaugural fall collection includes such diverse looks as silk bombers with delicate lace insets, embroidered denim dresses and jumpsuits, smartly tailored trousers and the highly popular Flip jean — a chic nod to the ’80s with a high-rise, turned-down waistband.
Carried by Barneys New York, Moda Operandi, Forward by Elyse Walker and other retailers, Jean Atelier’s first collection was quickly snapped up in pre-sale orders.
“It’s not hard to make a five-pocket jean and work with a factory that’s been working with us for the past 20 years — and laundries with good washes,” says Dahan, who championed L.A.’s denim production facilities in the 1990s, when other major labels moved their manufacturing abroad. “To be creative takes much more than that. That’s what Noam and I did with Jean Atelier.”
The two met in 2003 at a trade show in Las Vegas, where Dahan was debuting the first Citizens of Humanity collection and Hanoch was showing his contemporary line, NH Collection, in neighboring booths. “My schooling was a lot of draping, which Jerome wanted to marry into denim. He felt that was missing,” explains Hanoch, who cut his sartorial teeth as an intern at Geoffrey Beene under Alber Elbaz, and restoring dresses for the Costume Institute at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Dahan offered him a job on the spot as the creative director of his fledgling L.A. denim brand, where Hanoch remained for the next 11 years until 2014, when he launched his namesake, ready-to-wear dress line. “I felt like this was my time to do my dresses and the more intricate things I have always had a passion for,” Hanoch says.
In 2016, Dahan approached Hanoch once again, this time with a new denim concept, based on his finely tuned observations of the ever-changing industry. “The denim market was driven by skinny jeans for the last few years,” says Dahan, who saw an opportunity to introduce a new, more fashion-forward spin on the beloved wardrobe staple.
Reunited and working in a studio tucked away in the corner of the Citizens of Humanity’s sprawling production facility in Huntington Park, the duo, along with Dahan’s wife and brand manager, Elsa, envisioned the line.
“I have a more feminine instinct, while there’s a certain relaxed nature to denim that’s very attractive to Jerome,” says Hanoch about their design approach.
In terms of price, they positioned Jean Atelier between the contemporary and designer market. Fast fashion, Hanoch says, is not the brand’s culture.
“We feel strongly that there is this person looking for something really compelling and of high quality,” he says, gesturing toward a beautifully embroidered denim blouse for the spring 2018 collection. “It takes a day to embroider one of these pieces. There is a real space that has been created in this market for something more elevated and special.”
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