‘B’ Is the Mark of a Young Jeanius
If 1992 is any indication of what the future holds for Jason Bleick, then he might not have to explain the “B” tattooed on his left shoulder blade.
The Costa Mesa designer might even consider marketing a removable version of the jagged signature logo for mass consumption.
With sales expected to top $2 million this year, four times last year’s gross, jeans bearing the Bleick stamp could fast become hot property in the competitive denim market.
That’s denim menswear--not surf wear, street wear or the other labels automatically placed on many new clothing companies, Bleick is quick to underscore. His goal lies in making a name among fashion-forward denim makers such as Girbaud and Guess.
Neither were he or his partners Greg Hillman and Tom Ruiz interested in associating their line of colored denim with a particular music or any other cultural niche. At his first trade show three years ago, another new label, Cross Colours, was debuting its own colored denim line in the booth next door. In contrast to the quick success Colours has experienced, however, the three partners hope their slow ease into the market without being too trendy will ensure their longevity.
“Jason stuck to his guns and did not sell out with oversized looks,” says Ruiz, who in March arrived with best friend Hillman to take over the business helm of the fledgling label. Since their arrival, the company is better meeting the demand for Bleick product, something that overwhelmed the designer in the early stages.
Hillman, 28, company president, was one of the first employees at Club Sportswear and Mossimo. He spent four years at each company overseeing production and sales.
As national sales manager for Bleick, Ruiz laid the groundwork at Quiksilver and its subsidiary Pirate Surf, where he was West Coast sales representative for seven years.
“We found a good mutual relationship based on our individual strengths,” says Ruiz, 32. Despite their role in the company’s new success, both are quick to give credit to the label’s visionary and namesake, to whom they yield total creative control.
Bleick, now 22, had designs on fashion when most of the friends he grew up with in Huntington Beach only cared about surfing and partying.
“I started out by pegging everybody’s pants in the sixth grade. That and sewing Velcro wallets which I’d sell behind the bike racks at school,” he says.
He did free-lance artwork for several small surf wear companies right out of high school. (He first met Hillman one Fourth of July in “Zooport Beach” when he hopped on the back of Hillman’s tandem bike.)
Bleick made his professional design debut, albeit a minor one, suggesting color themes and silhouettes for his father’s company, which manufactured competition water ski jackets for several labels.
With less than a year of formal training at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, he quit school to start his own line.
“I didn’t like the way they taught things,” he says.
He supported himself by designing everything from T-shirt graphics to company logos and signs. A year later, in 1989, he officially got the line off with 15 knit and colored denim pieces. He did so with the help of his older brother, who handled production, and financial backing from their uncle.
Bleick immediately found a niche with overdyed denim. The details garnered attention. Besides the single leather belt loop that doubles as a designer label, Bleick jeans feature plenty of hardware: a button-fly (three exposed, the bottom two hidden), signature brass buttons and pocket rivets.
“All denim as a whole looks the same,” he says. “But the details set ours apart.”
The collection has grown to 60 pieces a season and remains denim-driven. For example, the five pocket-signature silhouette appears in lighter jersey for summer, keeping the “jeans feel” in pants and shorts. Besides lighter fabrics for pants, Bleick will continue to offer a relaxed light bull denim; the signature piece generates the most volume. Overdyed pin stripes provide a textured option to flat solids.
Besides jeans, Bleick considers vests the company’s current strong point. They come in brushed cotton in Jesse James-themed prints, big checks and glen plaid.
For summer, there are also flannel shorts and sleeveless shirts softened with a potassium wash. Striped flannel also appears on piece panels and pocket linings of assorted tops and bottoms.
Bleick clothes sell at Bullock’s Men’s Store, Costa Mesa; Newport Surf & Sport, Newport Beach; Becker Surfboards, Hermosa Beach, and Fred Segal, Santa Monica.
To evaluate his customer, the 16- to 30-year-old crowd, he turns to those around him.
“I have friends covered in tattoos all the way to those who are clean-cut and go to church every Sunday. So I try to think of a nice-looking garment that they all might want to wear.”
Bleick handles everything from sketching to pattern making to sanding the metal of the in-store displays.
“Eventually I will have to give up doing everything--even now I sometimes contract a pattern out,” he says. “But I’ll try to do as much as I can. I think it’s important to get the right look.”
Part of that look is the industrial-strength steel signs and shelving that he provides to stores. The cold metal, a carry-over from the hardware details on the clothes, serves as a contrast to the collection’s warm colors: hunter, honey, chili bean, black, electric purple and blue.
As for the colors found on his body, tattoos are another creative outlet Bleick has pursued. Two years after getting his first one at age 18, he met a tattoo artist whom he conned into teaching him the craft.
“I bought some equipment off of him and just started practicing on my leg. I did pretty good, too,” says Bleick.
Among the art on his left side: the Statue of Liberty, tribal patterns and an eyeball running with a paintbrush. “All my tattoos are on my left side. Even my nose ring is on my left side. I’m left-handed so it seems everything should be on that side.”
He has worked on other canvases, too. “You’d be surprised how many people will let you practice on them.”
Friends come to his design studio for a new tattoo or to have one touched up. They also come in for haircuts, something else Bleick has taught himself to do.
“I never liked the way the barber cut my hair,” he says. “That’s why I did my own line. I saw something missing out there that I wanted to do myself.”
