The Best Men's Brands in LA

New York gets top billing in the American fashion market, no doubt. But a new generation of designers is changing the perception that it’s the only place Stateside where fashion talent can make an impact. Among those vying for attention, Los Angeles is an obvious front runner in the clothing industry.

Designers out of L.A. have a lot going for them. The city obviously looks beautiful—which can be turned into inspiration, pulling from everything from beach wear to skater culture and streetwear, as T-shirts are quite ubiquitous—and there are a plethora of local production facilities that specialize in a variety of types of apparel, especially denim, that allows quality control and “Made in America” labels to be easily maintained. And while in the past it may have been that exact aesthetic style of basic, streetwear-leaning pieces that kept the industry from taking the city seriously, that look has recently taken hold.

What’s more, in the past few years, big names in fashion have given the city additional credibility: Hedi Slimane relocated the Saint Laurent design studio to the West Coast, eventually going on to host his last menswear show there; Tommy HIlfiger hosted a show there in February 2017, too. Add in buzzy boutiques like Josh Peskowitz’s Magasin opening up and the other coast packs quite a big of clout in menswear circles. Even the CFDA touches down in the West Coast each year, bringing out their Fashion Fund finalist designers for a celebrity studded presentation.

Even still, it’s unlikely that Los Angeles will ever overtake New York in prominence. Case in point: Most Los Angeles based designers who do host fashion presentations do so either in New York or Paris. Still, the West Coast does have the amount to exert a lot of influence in the industry, making it an important place in American fashion.

Here, we selected some of the best men’s brands in L.A., from Stampd to Fear of God.

With a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nomination and a 30-piece collection for Ikea under it’s belt, this ongoing Puma collaborator got its start in 2009 as a footwear brand. A 2011 reset got Stampd into limited-edition accessories, and now the label spans the market with denim, knits, basics, outerwear, sneakers, and its very own flagship shop on La Brea.

While the three designers behind this brand don’t get a ton of high profile celebrity endorsements, their designs don’t need it. Earning the industry seal of approval with an International Woolmark Prize nomination, the label turns out genderless elevated basics and tailoring that add design-forward tweaks on already familiar garments.

This designer made his name initially in hoodies. Reworking the classic design to put two zips on the side and altering the silhouette with a rounded hem, the Villain hoodie quickly became a must-have piece, and it, along with the rest of the brand’s offerings like their simple, tailored sweatpants and tees, garnered co-signs from Scott Disick, Pusha T, Kanye West, and even GQ, when they named Elliott as one of the “Best Menswear Designers of America” in 2016, resulting in a GAP collaboration.

Having spent times at Helmut Lang, RRL, and Buscemi, Mike Amiri, the man behind this label, knows his way around a garment. HIs aesthetic smashes L.A. grunge with a luxury component, spinning moth eaten tees out of Italian cashmere and high-price, destroyed denim and a covetable line of boots with some pretty clean sold out high-top sneakers. With collabs with Mr. Porter and more in the can, the label is primed to fill the space vacated by Hedi Slimane’s resignation from Saint Laurent.

In 2016, this brand became the first luxury label to collaborate with the NBA on product. While the announcement no doubt came as a surprise to some, the company had been churning out recognition-worthy cashmere for years, earning the top prize in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund back in 2012.

The son of Oliver Peoples founded this eyewear brand (first as a store) in 2009. But in 2016, the father came to work for the son, starting a new label under his brand. In addition to boasting stores in Venice Beach, Hollywood, and New York, the company finds fans in Leonardo DiCaprio, Riccardo Tisci, and Kendall Jenner.

Fans like Justin Bieber and Kanye West pushed Fear of God and its aesthetic to the forefront, and an FOG collaboration with PacSun took it mainstream. That aesthetic, which is informed by BMX, Christianity, rock, and a West Coast lifestyle also made its way onto one of the most prominent of fashion stages in the world, when Kanye West wore a pair of destroyed Fear of God jeans to the Met Gala.

Though musician-helmed brands usually rest on the laurels of their creator, there’s something about Golf Wang, from Tyler, the Creator, that aims for more. Tyler showed that when Golf Wang headlined the Made in LA fashion event with a freewheeling collection of quality, color saturated product that the label continues to drop regularly.