For Casual Menswear, Axis Designer Does a Good Turn
He’s a deadpan Scot--given to few words or mood swings--but put John Leitch in his own designs and the wit begins to show.
He wears his shirttails dragging to the thigh; his jackets are zoot-suit roomy. And today he pads around his studio in nerd-chic baggy shorts with sneakers.
“I don’t see our things as oversize. I see them as fitting correctly,” says the fair and angular Leitch, 37, designer for the Los Angeles menswear firm Axis.
Intended Customer
Less whimsical is Leitch’s other half: Axis president Marty Weening, a boyish 36 with Prince Valiant hair, can analyze to the smallest blip on a graph the intended Axis customer.
“It’s the generation that was born out of the ‘60s,” he says, which is “less traditional and probably more liberal in political and social viewpoints.”
More to the point: “They didn’t grow up shopping at Brooks Brothers,” he says.
In two years of business, Axis has reached specialty- and department-store racks in most states, pitching its “modern classics” to the former jeans-and-surplus-store set. In April, Fred Segal’s Santa Monica store will open a 750-square-foot Axis menswear boutique. And earlier this year, Axis was among seven West Coast firms nominated for California Mart’s Marty Award for menswear. Axis holes up nine floors above the downtown garment district in a whitewashed, wide-open studio. Not so much as a room divider offers privacy. As Weening and an associate talk business at his desk, a male model changes clothes 20 feet away. No need for memos, Leitch says: “I hear.”
‘Understated’ Look
Born outside Edinburgh and trained at London College of Fashion, Leitch believes in “anonymity” in menswear. “Men look better if they’re understated,” he says.
But where Axis turns unpredictable is in fabric choices, such as a shirting cotton suit, cotton pique sweat shirt, a crinkle-silk polo shirt and an undershirt trimmed in alabaster buttons and satin.
The Axis summer line, called Home Furnishings, features big shirts and jackets, tapered pants and shorts in cotton, rayon and knits.
“It’s our version of ultra-casual clothing for wearing out--or very sophisticated home wear,” Leitch says.
For fall, Axis will have a folkloric theme: embroidered shirts and sweaters based on Turkish-rug patterns. Tweed jackets, turtleneck shirts and soft shoulder suits round out the collection.
“Every time I look at the line,” Leitch notes, “I think of Robert Mitchum.”
Leitch worked in Brussels and London before moving to Seattle in 1976 to design for the sportswear firm Brittania Ltd. In 1981, he met Weening, a former San Jose State University drama student-turned-clothing wholesaler. A manager for the Los Angeles-based Zeppelin menswear company at the time, Weening says he had flown to Seattle to meet Leitch on a friend’s recommendation.
“I think I hired John an hour after I met him,” Weening says. “We seemed to have a mutual chemistry and a very similar outlook on the influences that were taking place fashion-wise.”
They worked at Zeppelin the following two years. When Weening got backing to start his own company, Leitch soon joined him. Axis is owned by Media Industries, the parent company of such menswear lines as Saratoga, Hartog and EMS.
Opened in August
The first couple of Axis collections were designed out of Leitch’s Hollywood apartment. In August, the firm opened its downtown offices with a staff of six.
Meanwhile, Axis has begun a woman’s line, designed by another Brittania alumna, Joyce Nadig. Weening won’t disclose figures on either side of the business, but Leitch notes that the firm’s strongest market to date is the East Coast.
Weening calls John the “free spirit”; himself “structured and analytical . . . .”
“It’s a good creative mix.”
Those dynamics haven’t changed so far, says Weening, who adds that “we’re both expressing what we’ve wanted to express for years.”
