California Apparel News

Usually confident, Lukus Eichmann and Daniel Green wondered if anyone would notice Saddlelites, their new line of premium denim, at the April 2003 Designers & Agents Show in Los Angeles.

By the end of the show, Eichmann and Green felt like they had hit the jackpot.

Buyers from top retailers— such as Barneys New York and the Hollywood Trading Co. in Santa Monica, Calif.—wrote orders for Saddlelites. Parisian retailer Colette wrote an order after the show.

Buzz was so great that Eichmann and Green had to turn down 95 percent of the stores that wanted to do business with them. It was a pretty good reaction for two 19-year-olds making their first attempt at manufacturing a premium denim line.

“It was a big step going from dealing with nobody to dealing with the stores that embraced our concept. They really got us,” said Green, now 21, from Saddlelites headquarters in a basement office in downtown Pasadena, Calif.

In one year, the privately held company made a profit of $800,000, according to Eichmann. The two co-owners reinvested it into their business.

“We have to build up demand and work with retailers who we can build relationships with before we can expand into the wider market,” Green said. “We don’t want to work with people who will say, ’They were cool for one season.’”

For its third season, the co-owners will add more depth to their collection, including corduroy and a cotton tweed herringbone bottom. But the craftsmanship and detail that initially intrigued blue-chip retailers will remain.

Saddlelites jeans are constructed from Japanese indigo denim and manufactured in Los Angeles. The young owners concentrate on the details, which they hope make each pair of jeans oneof- a-kind. Seams are quadruple-stitched instead of double-stitched, buttons are die cast, and embroidery designs on the back pockets feature art nouveau patterns.

Green and Eichmann said the details justify the line’s retail price points, which range from $200 to $280. Retailers said their clients have been won over by the complete look of the jeans.

“Customers like it for the fit,” said Meghan Misaki, co-owner of Noni in Los Angeles’ Larchmont Village, one of Saddlelites’ first accounts.

“As a buyer, I like it for the detail. They only do a half pocket, so you can’t see the pocket through the pant,” she said. “A lot of girls like to wear their jeans tight and sexy, but if you have pockets showing through the pants, it looks pretty tacky.”

Eichmann’s father, Marty, who has worked as a key grip on Hollywood movies, including 1994’s “Speed,” said his son and Green were unusually focused on business growing up in Santa Clarita, Calif., 30 miles north of Los Angeles.

“I did very little pushing,” Marty said. “He would go out and get ’How to Succeed in Business’ books. They were big boring things.”

While in high school, Eichmann and Green started a fashion Web site and Creative Jargon, a company specializing in graphic design and online marketing that showcased Eichmann’s business acumen and Green’s design skills. Green’s father is an artist.

They invested $15,000 from Creative Jargon into Saddlelites and spent more than eight months researching the denim market by interviewing people in the business and checking out stores.

Their biggest inspiration came from their own experience, however. In 2002, Green could not find a pair of jeans he liked that hit his 27-inch waist. So Green and Eichmann initially designed jeans to fit their body types.

“It’s still a niche product,” Green said. “When we expand, we’ll accommodate other body types and different styles.”

—Andrew Asch