New Americana. You know the style, but have you heard it described as such? This contemporary style is everywhere, chances are high that you’re outfitted in some right now if jeans/boots/shirting from modern brands is your flavor. To be honest, Heddels might not exist without New Americana, as we started by covering the style at the time of its booming.
Birthed by the revival of Japanese-made Americana clothing from brands The Flat Head, Studio D’Artisan, and many more, New Americana is all of what we love 20th Century American Manufacturing of denim, workwear, and military wear updating it with modern silhouettes and obsessive detailing. But the trend wasn’t just built by Japanese brands. American brands like Tellason, Raleigh Denim, Railcar, and Rogue Territory took Japan’s interpretations of American workwear and made them their own again, bringing the style full circle to its Western homeland.
High-quality materials, ethically made and durable, just like American garments used to be made — but made even better. That’s New Americana. Brands in the New Americana niche obsessively seek to innovate and wholly improve upon what was built before. They’re not simply reproducing the 501, they’re making it modern. We see the trend wherever high-quality jeans, shirting, leather jackets, and boots are found.
We’re covering New Americana in this chapter of Style Starters, who’s making Americana new, and what defines the modern New Americana look.
Historical Context
Image via Self Edge
Credit for the rise in New American fashion is due to the discerning customer. Those who care about seemingly invisible details that the mainstream doesn’t, especially in a time when folks couldn’t afford to waste money on clothes that weren’t working for them. The 2008 financial crisis paved the way for innovation in American fashion, and customers chose their clothes wisely, picking domestic manufacturing and lasting construction over gaudy and poorly constructed clothes from the mall. We could afford the time to spend researching for something worthwhile when money wasn’t expendable.
Those who craved style imbued with quality construction and details took to the internet. Message boards like Superfuture, Denim Bro, the Iron Heart forum, and Style Forum were (and to some extent, still are) ripe with discussion about Japanese Denim and New Americana style. Lovers of New Americana took to these sites and discussed at length the detailed clothes in which they wore and cared about, posting outfits and pick-ups, dissecting details from new releases, and sharing all the New Americana brands that were popping up at the time.
Online enthusiasm for the style led to raw denim fade competitions, world tour wearing events, and meetups held by various denim and workwear-centric communities. Heck, it even led to Heddels being formed under the name Rawr Denim in 2011! Without the internet, you could argue New Americana wouldn’t be a thing, and you’d be reading something else right now, most likely wearing your 5th pair of mall-bought jeans in as many years.
Sure, Levi’s and American manufacturing made the style, but Japanese denim brands born in the Japanese denim boom, and modern brands born in the New Americana boom, made it what it is today. From the naked eye, not a whole lot is different in the style, but to the discerning eye — the details are simply not the same.
The Key Pieces of the New Americana Look
Raw Selvedge Denim Jeans
Tellason Sheffield, $230 at Franklin & Poe
The bedrock of a New Americana look is a pair of raw selvedge denim jeans, typically in a slim-straight or straight-tapered fit. The famed Osaka 5 are responsible for obsessively reproducing the best American blue jeans of the past and bringing them into the modern era. The indigo nucleus formed by the Osaka 5 mutated into the beautiful raw denim scene we have today, where highly detailed and nuanced raw selvedge denim jeans are made in all kinds of cuts, including the contemporary slim fits that are so commonplace in the New Americana look.
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Shockoe Atelier Slim Stretch Selvedge Indigo Selvedge Denim, $235 from the Heddels Shop – images courtesy of Shockoe Atelier
Shockoe Atelier Slim Stretch Selvedge Indigo Selvedge Denim, $235 from the Heddels Shop – images courtesy of Shockoe Atelier
Americana Shirting
Iron Heart Ultra-Heavy Flannel Shirts, $342 at Brooklyn Clothing
End-tier, rugged button-downs that flaunt details of historic American workwear are another key piece in the New Americana look. Think Western Shirts, work shirts, and check wool/flannel shirts that you would see in an old workwear catalog, brought into the 21st century with slimmer, more contemporary fits, higher quality fabrics, and small-batch production.
Arguably the biggest pioneers in this category are Japanese brand, Iron Heart, whose heavyweight flannel shirts have been a firm favorite with denim heads for over 10 years.
Calico Shirt in 9oz. Indigo Denim, $280 from Freenote Cloth.
Welted Boots
Service Boot 2030 BCT in Light Tobacco Janus Calf Suede, $845 from Viberg.
Welted footwear is almost a separate niche in itself – just look at online communities like Stitchdown and Shoegazing. But when it comes to New Americana, the welted boot is king. Brands like Red Wing, Viberg, Thorogood, and Wolverine have all made iconic work boots that have carved an everlasting space in the genre. Particularly Red Wing, who make arguably the two most popular styles amongst the New Americana brigade – The Moc Toe Boot and Iron Ranger.
Red Wing 8111 Iron Ranger Boots in Amber, $339 from Hatchet Outdoor Supply Co.
Leather Goods
Natural Vegetable Tanned Leather Bifold with 6 Card Slots, $80 at Pigeon Tree Crafting
Hollows Leather Trail Belt, $135 at Franklin & Poe
New Americana Today
Image via Withered Fig
Today, the New Americana style thrives and looks largely the same as it did when it began. The market for hard-wearing and form-fitting clothes is stronger than ever. A solid pair of jeans, flannels, and boots hasn’t gone out of fashion, and they simply won’t. They’re easy to wear, look great, and look even better with time and the effects of aging. There’s no exterior aesthetic outside of the clothing that defines New Americana, anyone who wants quality clothing can wear this style, making New Americana as accessible as can be.
We’ve seen innovation in fabrics, patterning of clothes, artisanal leather tanning, and transparency in manufacturing increase over the years. The style itself hasn’t drastically changed, we’re all still wearing form-fitting jeans, flannels, belts, etc.
Financial crises come and go, but the demand for long-lasting clothes has remained, with the New Americana niche continuing to stay strong in the fashion realm. Internet discourse continues on places like the Iron Heart forum, Stitchdown, and social media platforms like Instagram.
Image via Danjaq LLC, MGM, United Artists
