Scott Sternberg founded Band of Outsiders in January 2004. The former Hollywood agent began by re-cutting and re-contextualizing vintage fabrics to create classic menswear with hand-sewn seams, thoughtful detail, shrunken proportions and using, Sternberg recalls, "whatever I could afford without having to by hundreds of meters of fabric." Ron Herman in L.A., Jeffrey in New York and Barneys subsequently bought the collection. From there, the limited-edition line has grown to include a full women's collection titled Boy, a specialty line devoted to Scotland and a collaboration with Sperry. I recently met with Sternberg at his shared SoHo showroom, where the color palate of his fall '08 menswear collection is notably darker than usual but includes plenty of plaids, and the women's line features, among other things, a radical removable raccoon fur collar. In anticipation of his presentation in Chelsea tomorrow, we discuss the representations of Scottish lineage, peaked labels and his pronouncedly sartorial upbringing.
Alex Gartenfeld: Tell me a bit about the inception of the collection.
Scott Sternberg: Men's and women's both come out of the same place. I try to center myself in a number of ways. Obviously there's a bunch of aesthetic inspirations that bleed into it from season to season. And there's broader stuff about the evolution of the collection. This time, I was trying to do something a little more romantic, and a little less cute.
AG: How did you achieve that?
SS: It's also a little more adult. There's always sort of a boyish theme running through it, and it should always be that. But there are elements that are completely new. In terms of the romanticism, that means a darker, moodier palate. A peaking lapel, for example, is to me almost the ultimate example. So there's sort of a '40s pre-war vibe going on. I played with the details, the cuffs, slanted pockets, one button...
AG: Your collection has always included a number of plaids. This year you debut a line specifically devoted to Scotland...
SSI took a trip to Scotland and started working with some mills there and spinners and weavers and all that. It's one of the building blocks of American menswear, where it really started. I just thought it would be cool to learn more, and really what Band of Outsiders is about is just digging deep into the annals and archives, and the interest in this classic stuff. It's trying to take things apart and put them back together in a seemingly classic way so you really look at the pieces and understand that they're quite different. So I went to Scotland to get some knitwear, and ended up getting lots of fabric there.
AGWhat is a tartan?
SS: A tartan is a plaid. The families in Scotland -- the great legacy families in Scotland would all have their own tartan. So the Black Watch plaid comes from the Black Watch family. Yours there [pointing to my shirt], I don't know what it's called, but it would be your emblem. Which is really great in its own right.
AG: How do you move from designing for men to designing for women?
SS: I usually start with men's. Boy is about interpreting men's stuff for women. And the core of it is taking these traditionally maybe Nantucket-y, stuck-up, East Coast, hideous sort of cliché clothes and trying to make them really easy and cool. Because I love these fabrics, and nubby flannel should be really chic on a girl with a little leather button.
AG: Who is buying the collection?
SS: It's like a cultish thing. It's funny. I try not to let everybody have the shirts, to maintain a level of scarcity. Lots of different guys, though, not just little guys. I make an XXL, I call them jumbo sizes, I have my jumbo friends (who aren't all that jumbo) -- they're stocky guys, and they actually look great in the shirt, because it gives them shape. And then in terms of the tailored things, it's the same evolution as the shirts. Obviously it's more expensive stuff. There's the shirt guy and then there's also a strange Chicago market. It sells in five stores there. I don't think it's incredibly cool people buying, because it's a very easy look. That's something, especially with women's clothing, that's always going on with me is how do I sort of take this concept and sort of make it cool and easy.
AG: Did you dress like this as a child? You must have been quite precocious!
SS: I did. I grew up around gentleman's shops, Richard's of Greenwich, Mario's in Seattle, etc. and I just remember being in them and around them. My parents were like crazy shoppers. Like for sure. They didn't like sports, and my mom falls asleep in movies. They just shopped together. It's great, until the credit card bills came. We coveted clothes. But having too many things can be too much: how can you covet ten pairs of slacks?
Above: Jason Schwartzman wears Band of Outsiders. For more photos, go to bandofoutsiders.com.
RSS