HUDSON JEANS - Spring Summer ’14:
Jimi Hendrix’s mid summer’s night dream
TORONTO - Jimi Hendrix goes to Morocco for an Osheaga type music festival. In this prismatic land, he embraces the desert wind and sun, figuratively lets his hair down and puts his feet up, and kisses the sky. In a storyline nut shell, these were the various points of departure for Hudson Jean’s Creative Director Ben Taverniti in creating their spring summer collection. It is worldly and wild and wickedly attractive. Ladies and gentleman, it’s Wishful Sinful.
On November 21st, I was greeted at the owner’s suite at the Shangri-La Hotel by Erin from The Mint Agency, Claudia from Hudson Jeans, and three unidentified beautiful models - two staggeringly tall females, and one handsome male. In conversation it comes out that he is 20 and that I just turned 30. Age gap aside, I still proceed to tell him that he is very hunky. That doesn’t make things awkward at all. He goes into the other room to change and I stay put and swallow my folly.
I digress.
In a variety of denim blues, foggy desert hues, stark black, and vivid colours were racks full of styles from A to Z - quite literally, as each style and wash has a name that lands it somewhere on the alphabet spectrum.
Photos by Lynda Castonguay (Click to enlarge)
Each style was complimented by either a digital print, a new or revisited type of wash or distress and finished off with a little funky beat: a released hem, exposed zipper and buttons or cut off waistband - details that further identified the collection as raw.
There were the Milky Way Express, the Vermillion, the Easy Blue and the Sierra in their Nico style. There were the hip to ankle zipper baby flares and the mid-rise super skinny Nancy pants with a digital skull print on the front pant legs. These don’t speak to everyone’s style but the verdict was in from all editors and writers present - totally copacetic!
The wax finishing on some of the styles was concerning to me at first. The shine the wax lent to the jeans was interesting but as we know, denim can already be unforgiving; add a layer of wax and surely the jeans are like cement. But rather than being rigid as expected, they were malleable and soft to the touch.
Following an already amazing array of styles was a limited edition line of snakeskin, leather and suede pants; my most preferred being the Krista Vice Versa which has snakeskin on the front panels and denim on the back - fashion’s reverse equivalent to the famous mullet expression “business in the front, party in the back” And who can forget the fire engine red suede bell bottoms. Disclaimer: the moment you step into these pants you will have a Jimi Hendrix/McJagger moment.
Photos by Lynda Castonguay
In terms of mens apparel, there were looks preferable to the every day man and others for the man willing to take a bit of a denim leap such as with the red wash denim with a grey undertone or the black denim with rip n’ repair patches throughout and a contrast blue denim released hem.
To each his or her own, but my favourite looks were the Jude Slouch Skinny May This Be Love boyfriend jean. It’s the jeans without the real boyfriend, a real plus for us single women. Also top ranking were the Shelby Custom Motto Super Skinny in black with contrast knee details. The added texture on the knee is combative, like protective gear, which I love. It speaks this unspoken language that any woman that wears them is ready. She is tough. And she will throw herself to the ground to win one of life’s matches, and will bounce back up unscathed and still quite fashionable.
One informative and fun preview later, it was plain to see that Hudson’s creative team seamlessly whisked together healthy portions of carefree and “I don’t give a damn” attitudes with heaps of fabric ingenuity and made a batch of feminine yet hard edged jeans. What a sinful recipe!
Hudson Jeans SS 2014
Photo courtesy of Hudson Jeans
Photo courtesy of Hudson Jeans
Photo courtesy of Hudson Jeans
More articles by Lynda Castonguay: The ShOws
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