Courting Respect, BC Ethic Takes to the Catwalk

Measured on the fashion world’s all-important celebrity appeal index, Vernon-based menswear company BC Ethic is a big-time success. The brand’s vintage-inspired shirts--as essential to the retro lounge-lizard look as a dirty martini--have been seen on the backs of Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Matthew Perry and members of pop bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Barenaked Ladies and Smashmouth.

By financial standards, the 8-year-old company is, well, “money, baby.” BC Ethic, which stands for blue-collar ethic, raked in more than $18 million in sales last year to stores ranging from Pacific Sunwear to Neiman Marcus. It recently acquired L.A. junior brands Dawls and Drawls.

But something was missing, the olive on top of the silver cocktail pick, so to speak, which is why the company spent more than $100,000 to launch what was set to be its first runway show Thursday night on the catwalks of New York.

It was also an opportunity for the West Coast brand to gain respect on the East Coast.

“Editors there think we are all a bunch of surf companies. We want to be taken seriously as a design house,” said Ty Bowers, BC Ethic designer and creative director.

A show also allowed the company to present its full line.

“Each retailer buys one segment of our line, and they don’t see the entire concept,” said Jeffrey Shafer, company president, in an interview in L.A. last week. “A runway presentation was a way to show buyers and press that we have a world-class product.”

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Even as some industry insiders debate the relevance of runway shows in a retail landscape dominated by mega-brands like the Gap and Banana Republic, smaller companies such as BC Ethic, Sold Apparel, Mecca USA and Custo Barcelona are bringing their collections to New York hoping to give the high-fashion establishment a run for its money.

“We can’t have Calvin Klein and Armani forever. They are not going to be the fashion focus for young people,” Bowers said. “Young people want to buy from companies who are breaking new ground. A lot of small companies have pioneered things in the past few years only to see them show up in other designers’ lines. It’s time for some new blood.”

With the music of Jane’s Addiction blaring in the background, BC Ethic’s CaliforniaMart showroom is more of a hangout than an office.

Each of the four founders has his own specialty. Shafer manages the financial side, James Huber takes care of marketing, Mark Zacher directs sales, and Bowers is the creative director and clothing designer.

They also come from very different backgrounds. Shafer, 40, grew up in Santa Monica, attended UC Santa Barbara and earned a master’s in business administration from Northern Arizona State. Huber, 37, is a Washington farm boy-turned-fashion model who once ran his own sports marketing firm. Zacher, 41, a Seattle native, has the most extensive retail background, with more than 20 years of sales experience. Bowers, 40, never thought he’d end up a fashion designer when he moved from Oklahoma to L.A. to be a graphic designer. The four even live in separate corners of L.A.

Still, Huber said, “we work well together . . . like a rock band.”

All good-looking and likable, they are undoubtedly a key part of BC Ethic’s appeal. These are guys’ guys who can talk about the Super Bowl, the new Lit album and their sons in the same conversation. They are also girls’ guys--the kind who dress up for a date.

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After being burned during his first foray into fashion, spending a lot of money on a high-priced designer who didn’t deliver, Shafer wanted his second venture, BC Ethic, to be completely different.

“Instead of hiring some exotic designer, I got in my car and drove five miles down the road from my house to a uniform supply facility in Commerce,” he remembers. His plan was to buy old gas station uniforms, clean and patch them and sell them as new.

“There were fantastic jackets with side tabs and shorter, cropped bodies, boxy camp shirts and flat front trousers. The only problem was that they smelled bad,” Shafer said.

Not surprisingly, he decided to go with vintage-inspired clothing instead.

The brand was originally going to be named blue collar, but, Shafer said, “we weren’t really trying to appeal to [blue-collar workers] as much as we were trying to create a line symbolic of the work ethic of the 1940s and ‘50s,” he said. Hence, the name BC Ethic.

Shafer said he became fascinated by blue-collar workers during business school. “It used to be, people who wore uniforms were looked up to,” he said, “but now they are treated like trash.” BC Ethic is an homage of sorts.

Shafer met Bowers by accident, when he consulted the business-to-business Yellow Pages to find a graphic designer to create a logo and landed in Bowers’ office. The two men became fast friends, and Shafer convinced Bowers to try his hand at clothing design.

After a couple of false starts, BC Ethic mastered the updated uniform look and started to focus on after-work wear.

“We realized blue-collar guys may have worn gas station uniforms all day, but the uniforms they wore at night to their hot rod and bowling clubs were just as cool,” Shafer said. “The car culture of the 1940s and ‘50s, especially in California, was tremendously rich in color and design.”

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Bowers and Shafer scoured the Rose Bowl swap meets and Southern California’s thrift shops for vintage inspiration. The designs that resulted were modern interpretations of James Dean jackets, high Hollywood-waist dress pants, sweater sets, and bowling shirts with prints reminiscent of the Rat Pack and Tiki culture.

The look played especially well with the emerging swing revival. BC Ethic dressed Royal Crown Revue, the band at the helm of the return to swing, and placed clothing in the film “Swingers.” Sales swelled as swing kids hit the dance floor in droves in the mid-1990s.

But now that lounge is yesterday’s news (again), Bowers is wary of even using the word “vintage” to describe BC Ethic for fear the brand will be pigeonholed.

“It’s not a good sound bite anymore,” he said.

For the core BC Ethic customer, vintage-inspired shirts created by British designer Lloyd Johnson, owner of La Rocka stores in London were expected to be introduced at last night’s show in New York. But they were to be mingled on the runway with more contemporary cargo pants, motocross-inspired shirts, polyurethane and leather car coats.

On the marketing side, Huber, who refers to BC Ethic as an “entertainment company,” continues to turn fresh talent onto the brand, including breaking bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls, street luge racer Dennis Derammeleare, pro-snowboarder Paul Longfellow and Los Angeles DJ Jason Bentley.

“Jim has found a diverse group of people who like the clothes,” Shafer said. “Their common thread is their taste for what is modern and stylish but not flamboyant.”

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Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.