It’s always great to see more and more denim brands entering the market. However, in all honesty, there’s only so much unique one can say about a pair of jeans. Don’t get us wrong, we love a good pair of raw jeans as much as the next guy, but what really gets us going is when we see a passion for, and innovation of, denim as a fabric. One man that recently caught our attention is Nigel Reyes, the gentleman behind the One Man Brand, Black House Project.
After Reyes unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it) lost his job, he decided to put his passion for construction and design, as well as his fashion degree, to good use and began producing vintage and military inspired bags and aprons under the title Black House Project.
Initially, due to financial restrictions, Reyes’ fabric of choice, raw denim, proved inaccessible and so he settled for working with duck canvas, a material that most denim fans will know holds similar qualities. Purely by chance, he recently stumbled upon a roll of vintage selvedge denim that had been hiding out in a local fabric store for years and the result, a limited collection of aprons, duffle and tote bags has denim geeks swooning.
Reyes takes great pride in the attention to detail, craft and quality that he says are evident in his products. Though he’s looking forward to learning new things and having Black House Project‘s offerings branch out over time, he states one thing that you can be sure of is that these three aforementioned qualities will remain, “Black House Project is an open-ended project!”.
The details on his denim offerings include copper rivets, vegetable tanned leather handles, chambray lining and, on the duffle bag, heavy duty brass YKK zippers. All of the products in Black House Project‘s line-up are individually numbered and offer ample storage and carry space for their purpose, with the denim aprons offering the perfect combination of functionality and aesthetics.
Currently all of Black House Project‘s production, marketing, web-design and photography is done by Reyes himself out of his tiny apartment in San Francisco. Due to the scale of operations, all of Reyes‘ products are made in strictly limited quantities, however having found a decent supply of material, it looks like his selvedge denim offerings will be sticking around.
Like this? Read these:
Although he has now secured a steady supply of vintage selvedge denim, he has no plans to scale back the production of his other products. These include backpacks, utility pouches, travel kits and even a shoulder holster, all constructed out of either duck canvas or cordura nylon.
On the top of Reyes’ to-do list is finding a great studio space in San Francisco so that he can expand Black House Project‘s production line. After that he has plans to bring on-board a skilled seamstress in order to further increase Black House Project‘s capacity. Despite his impressive product offering, he says that Black House Project is still very much in it’s infancy and he has huge plans for the future.
For an in-depth look at Reyes day-to-day life and behind the scenes product shots, catch up with him on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Pinterest. All of the products featured here and more can be purchased on the Black House Project’s web store.
