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View Winners → Archive May 09, 2016
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American-made menswear staple brand Buck Mason allows for the jeans and T-shirt guy to keep it as simple as possible. A sentiment heard often is that no one needs another basics line. That is, unless you’re a dude. The modern man’s struggle to find proper-length jeans and well-cut T-shirts that not only fit but last and hold up is a reoccurring quandary we’ve found ourselves trying to answer for the male reader since day one.
When Venice-based Buck Mason entered the space of making closet staples, noticeable buzz began. Not the momentary viral hype from a Kanye tweet, but real guys, face to face, praising their finds. The brand has the gift of evoking positive gossip as a brand worthy of a long-term relationship.
“Our biggest driver of growth and even bigger complement to our product is word of mouth,” says Sasha Koehn, co-founder of the brand. “We’ve had a lot of success with just letting our brand breathe and letting our customers be the ones talking about it, instead of us.”
It was Koehn, along with Erik Schnakenberg, who founded the company based out of a frustration in the lack of affordable US-based brands making the things men wear most. They searched for fabrics that lasted multiple washes and were comfortable. They found a classic fit that appealed to a broad range of ages.
“Our product is less about innovation and more about quality and discipline. The cool thing about bucking trends is that we can spend our time refining fit and fabric, and focusing on the fundamentals. We take a slow approach to everything. I mean, our research and development process is nothing short of obsessive. The fits, the fabric, we’ll change things over and over before they go to market,” says Schnakenberg.
A true Angeleno brand, the two have kept the line light and layered, but as expansion becomes inevitable Schnakenberg says they will have to step outside of their golden state mentality.
“We don’t really have seasons in Los Angeles, it’s always just varying degrees of nice, so as we grow nationally and internationally, we always need to remind ourselves that the rest of the world isn’t living in 75 degree weather.”
Even though they’re LA-based, they still do a fair bit of online business, even offering a package option online that allows guys to grab a button down, tee, and denim all in one swoop. You can also get their most popular tee in three colors and their neutral leather belts in black and brown, a saving grace to the men who find the perusing period their version of a torture device.
“Our packages are developed to completely reduce the overwhelming shopping experience that some may have while shopping online. It’s for the guy who doesn’t have time, or doesn’t want to think and trusts our curation,” said Koehn.
Far out west and allowing the laid-back Venice vibes to permeate in their styling and branding, the Buck Mason men have good news for those east of La Brea looking to step into a physical location minus a ride on the daunting I-10. In early spring, Koehn says a new brick-and-mortar store is opening on the East side, but until there’s more news, the rest is tight-lipped, so we’ll have to wait and see what they’ve got planned.
