Eye To Eye It Lasts. The Elder Statesman Resort 2024

June 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s back to groovy basics at The Elder Statesman. “Resort is holiday, so we tapped into a lot of our heritage, traditional kind of motifs,” Bailey Hunter, the brand’s creative director, said. “Florals, tie-dyes, stripes – all the things that we’re known for, we reinvented them in a way; and we’ve used a lot of new woven materials that we’ve brought into our library.” Materials – and yarn, especially – are king at Elder Statesmen. But the brand keeps on evolving into other categories. The yellow suit that opened the lookbook is a cashmere-cotton-wool twill made in Italy that feels like the softest and lightest denim. Another suit – the brand calls it “relaxed tailoring” – is made from Italian 50/50 cashmere and wool and comes in three colors: rose hip, dark green, and bark, in both men’s and women’s styles. A highlight of the collection was certainly the wool donegal made on a vintage loom in Italy in colorblocked squares of gray, navy, and wine. In the lookbook it appears as a wrap skirt secured with an oversized safety-pin and styled with a cashmere hand-painted crewneck sweater. Together, they’re youthfully punky and quite timeless.

A collaboration with Uggs is The Elder Statesman’s first foray into footwear. The clogs, mules, and boots made from patchworked sheepskin and decorated with “darning”-style embroidery are sure to become must-haves when they’re released later this year. A sporty tank and mini skirt made from hand-knit alpaca and cotton in various shades of blue, a wave patterned knitted cashmere shirt and pants, and a pair of knitted striped cargo pants in mixed bouclé yarns were more proof that the knitwear experimentation here is unparallelled. The bouclé cargos were worn with a black sweater featuring an intarsia illustration of eyes and the phrase “eye to eye it lasts,” a design that came from Greg Chait’s, the brand’s founder, grandmother Thelma. Chait said, “I feel like [the phrase] is about the collection.” Hunter finished the thought: “It’s about how it’s a lot better to see things in person, and see how everything feels.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Groovy. The Elder Statesman Resort 2023

August 17, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

There’s only one place in Paris where you can stand over a pool of koi and under a glittering disco ball. Dragons Elysées is a Chinese restaurant that delights in kitsch – and can hold, as a nighttime The Elder Statesman presentation proved, a surprising number of revelers. Even in the brand’s thick knits on a humid Parisian day, the guests didn’t have a lick of sweat beading. Just one way Bailey Hunter, the creative director, is innovating at the Los Angeles-based label. The other way is that she is bringing the vibes back to one of fashion’s vibiest brands. Throughout the pandemic, founder Greg Chait took immense pride in the way The Elder Statesman was innovating and bringing most of its operations in-house. A new yarn-spinning technique, he said during his Paris event, would take at least a week to understand. But for all the ways the label reimagines its lightweight wovens, its groovy patterned knits, and its hand-done embroidery, crocheting, and dyeing, the special sauce of TES is its mood. That radiated during this crowded Parisian show. Chait and Hunter should stick with the idea and bring their party-presentations to more locations around the globe.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Vibrant Vibes. The Elder Statesman AW22

April 17, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Happy Easter! Here’s a beautiful treat: The Elder Statesman‘s vibrant autumn-winter 2022 look-book. This season, Los Angeles-based label’s creative director, Bailey Hunter, rang up her friends in Jamaica and gave them the keys to the castle. In collaboration with Savannah Baker, the collection’s photos and film were shot around Portland, Jamaica, and include jacquards and intarsias created by Baker’s niece, the British-Jamaican artist Kione Grandison. Good vibes abound. With each year, founder Greg Chait reports business going better and better and better, and with each season the brand opens the door to new ideas and techniques. Coats are made from an Italian woven hand whipstitched in Los Angeles. Post-consumer recycled-cashmere button-downs are hand dyed in the brand’s expansive L.A. H.Q. A new corduroy program, made from Italian cashmere, brings the label beyond sweaters and into one-of-a-kind tie-dye separates. Elsewhere the dyes have no ties at all – and there is experimentation in new ways to create print and texture on the sweaters. Even the abstracted checkerboard patterns and amoeba-like dyes – both executed in previous seasons – feel new and exciting. And that’s a big statement for a mostly knitwear brand.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Soothing Grooviness. The Elder Statesman AW21

March 23, 2021 | Design & Culture by Ed

If The Elder Statesman was a music album, to me, it would be Lana Del Rey’s latest Chemtrails Over The Country Club. It’s laid-back, it’s care-free, it’s soothing. Greg Chait‘s California-based company makes the trippiest luxurious knitwear out there, and with every season, he manages to expand his world in a natural, considered way. The pre-fall 2021 collection was photographed on a troupe of homesteaders and pot farmers in Northern California, and the autumn-winter 2021 line-up at Biosphere 2 – an environmental simulation in Arizona. In both contexts, Chait’s sun-drenched, signature style is key: clothing engineered for durability, warmth, and optimum vibes. For the latter collection, Mordechai Rubinstein, the photographer and hippie dandy, offered his eye for a swirling tie-dye collaboration. There is a new crochet program in which studio scraps are knotted into trousers and hoodies, each one unique and groovy. The brand’s new fabric, a cotton-cashmere herringbone, was cut into button-downs and casual pants, which were hand-dyed in a lot behind the studio. The inside of the herringbone is electric with color and the exterior faded, a result of the fabric blend. Chait describes it as sort of a happy accident; cashmere takes dye well, cotton doesn’t. Going through the entire collection you get the sense that Chait and company are having a great time, trying to stay smart, small, and sustainable. And it pays off!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Team Work. The Elder Statesman Resort 2021

July 21, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s interesting how two brands, of different scales and formats, emphasized the topic of team work in times of confinement. At Gucci, the resort 2021 collection reveal was an entire, 12-hour long social media event, where Alessandro Michele’s design team, no longer anonymous, modelled the clothes they have designed for not only the look-book, but the advertising campaign. At the same time, we’ve got The Elder Statesman from Los Angeles, where Greg Chait, the founder of the tie-dyed cashmere heaven, presented the collection on his team. But here, it wasn’t just about the studio designers. The whole The Elder Statesman family was here, wearing their garments in context of their work at the brand (from crotcheting to dyeing) and personal passions (farming!). The family aspect was even more clear once you take a glance at the clothes. The pen-and-ink artwork prints come from Greg’s grandmother, Thelma Chait, a prolific artist not acknowledged in her day. Chait and his cousin unearthed a storeroom full of Thelma’s drawings, books, and writings last year, with the designer planning on using them as a foundation for a collection since. The messages of unity, humanity, and love in her illustrations would feel right for any time – she produced much of her art in the groovy and turbulent ’60s and ’70s – but they weave into this collection for 2021 like a soothing balm. Her stick figure of a human, arms circled about its head like a halo, appears on a sweater, as a button, and as a brooch, while her rainbow pen strokes are interpreted as a tie-dye. A map shows fields, cities, deserts, and forests in a sacred geometric pattern on the back of a cardigan worn with ombré cashmere sweats. Making these pieces feel all the more beautiful is the way they were put together and photographed. Knitting, Chait told Vogue, was permissible during California’s lockdowns as a form of manufacturing at home. He and his team drove around Southern California delivering yarns, looms, and ideas for weeks. Already close, the team found a new camaraderie, he explained, and so it was obvious that Thelma’s collection should be represented on the people who made it. Benjamin, a senior knitter, opens the look book in a cashmere sweater with orange trimming, his loom in hand. Chait described him as “a legend,” and went on discussing the importance – both corporately and personally – of each of his colleagues. China, the brand’s VP of sales, models a matching knit set inspired by Thelma’s line. Ariel, the head of dyeing, poses in an ombré of her own design alongside buckets of dye and her dog. Jo, who did the collection’s hand-crocheted flowers, is shown in a gingham shirt-jacket mid-stitch. Chris, a sales associate from the West Hollywood store, wears a jacket made of the new “Cloud” fabric, a paper-thin 100% organic cotton. For the first time, Chait’s own daughter, Dorothy Sue, appears in the collection in a rainbow set made from a Japanese fabric that is 93% cotton and 7% cashmere. No offense Gucci, but my heart is utterly stolen by The Elder Statesman.