Mel Matsui

Mel Matsui

Obituary: Mel Matsui, 68: Denim Expert Launched Simply Blue, Christopher Blue, Indigo Hand and Pulp Brands

Denim-industry veteran Mel Matsui died on April 12. He was 68.

Andrew Olah, president of Olah Inc., organizer of the Kingpins trade show, wrote this remembrance of his friend and business associate.

The quantity and diversity of individuals who actualize a combination of ingenuity, creativity and commerce are the things that make America special. Foreigners like this expatriate move to the United States to be amongst a nation of people bursting with entrepreneurial spirit.

One of the lights of this glorious American beacon dimmed on April 12, 40 days before his 69th birthday, when my friend, mentor and hero Mel Matsui died. His memory lives vibrantly in my soul, and I feel his presence, his humor and his love for our industry frequently in my life. His spirit will live forever amongst those who were lucky enough to have been touched by his presence and friendship.

I met Mel sometime in the early 1980s when he was a vice president of Brittania in Seattle. He had just returned from Hong Kong, where he had been president of Brittania Hong Kong, whose sourcing office, Brittsport, had become the largest buyer of men’s jeans in Hong Kong, and Brittsport’s factories held the most quota of jeans for the USA during the days of bilateral trade agreements.

Mel was bubbly, busy, ingeniously smart and funny. Brittania was a hugely successful firm—really the first company to make jeans in a huge way outside of the USA. Mel understood the jeans and casualwear industry to its core. He understood and loved design. I’ve met very few people in my career who carried his passion and understanding of the importance and relevance of new product and good product. In conjunction with that mentality, Mel completely understood the industry trifecta: production, product and profit. He was also skilled at setting up corporate administration, sourcing fabrics and factories, and it was easy for him to build long-lasting relationships with foreign buying agents. Mel’s personality inspired the best people to want to work with him.

Once he was interviewed in a magazine and asked what was the single most important element for us to keep in mind when making a brand in our industry. While many industry icons were asked the same question and gave esoteric, complex responses, Mel answered in “Melspeak.” “Points,” he said. “It’s all about margin.” But what he did not say or share was that he always assumed the product was excellent and special. For him the business was about the three F’s: fit, fabric, finish.

Mel’s career after Brittania is an enormous body of either great success or being first.

Initially, there was Chutes Corp., which created the young men’s line Fresh Squeeze, and then he launched Code Bleu in 1983, a line devoted entirely to the best indigo jeans possible. Using Japanese fabric and production, Code Bleu enjoyed huge success and was sold by 1989. Moving to Los Angeles in 1990, Mel worked at LA Gear and Quiksilver until 1993, when he started Indigo Hand, another indigo-centric collection, using the best Japanese fabrics. Then came Pulp, using Tencel denim. Tencel fiber was new to the market at the time, and it’s interesting to note Mel saw the potential of that fiber in denim in its early days on the market. Today Tencel is a seriously important component of premium denim.

Then Mel had the idea of making a jeans brand in the USA after he sold Indigo Hand to Caitac, a Japanese laundry in Los Angeles, and partnered with them on a new line called Origin America, which was produced in Bellingham, Wash.

In 1997, as the trend for “premium jeans” began, Mel and his wife, Barbara Rosati, started Simply Blue and Christopher Blue. His target was a more misses customer rather than the hip young clients the Los Angeles premium brands were chasing. Mel’s idea was again correct, and he was able to sell that company and all its other brands and Jag license in 2005 to Hartmarx in Chicago. Serving as president of Simply Blue for a few years, Mel was later able to spend more time with his family, camping, golfing and fishing while cutting traveling from his life.

What is most fascinating about Christopher Blue and the various other brands and licenses that fell under the Simply Blue umbrella was that Mel and Barbara were able to start and run the business from their house for a very long time until it became too big.

First they worked from the front room, then two bays in the garage, and, finally, three bays before going to the traditional route of having corporate offices.

Mel avoided travel yet produced his apparel in China. Building a powerful sales team, he was also able to avoid the need to deal with trade shows and customer visits for the most part. Mel did Simply Blue the way all of us aspire to live and work—his way the whole way and from his residence.

Mel’s importance in our industry is gigantic. He innately felt what was coming next. He was a living entity that could synthesize what the market needed and was capable of executing—again, both creatively and physically. Some people in our industry design, some produce, some market, some sell—but Mel did it all. In my 37 years in the industry I have hardly ever met anyone who could perform all these skills at the same time.

I am going to miss Mel enormously. His family has to find the strength to live life without him being physically available, but they too will live with him inside themselves.

We all work in this industry for various reasons. Some of us because we love it; some of us because we do not have any other skills and have no choice. Few of us leave a mark or, as in Mel’s case, many marks or exclamation points. He set a high benchmark for entrepreneurs in the jeans business. It’s not easy to have one success. It’s almost unbelievable to have accomplished what Mel Matsui did. I suppose this can only happen in America.