Last fall, we introduced our readers to a new denim brand called REVTOWN. The brand is unique in that it’s goal is to deliver the first true performance denim, thanks to the background of their team, which transitioned from sportswear brand Under Armour. REVTOWN produces quality denim that offers a near-perfect fit, while also coming in at half the price that usual premium denim brands do. One of our favorite highlights from the brand is something they call Decade Denim — a soft, super strong yarn made in Italy that is constructed into the pant for a stretch fit.
After rocking their denim jeans for a few months now and being impressed by their comfort and quality, we chatted with founder Henry Stafford about the origins of REVTOWN, their DECADE DENIM and what’s next.
First, I want to start with the name of the brand. REVTOWN: Can you talk about what the name “REVTOWN” means?
When creating the vision of the brand, there were a few goals that resurfaced again and again. We want to revitalize the denim market by putting an innovative spin on a classic clothing item. We aim to revolutionize the way that people were shopping for their jeans. And we have a great passion for what we do and the products we create—you could say we revel in our work.
The “town” in Revtown is a reference to our roots. Revtown is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. Our team members are from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, MD, and small towns in Nebraska and Pennsylvania. We don’t come from big cities like New York or LA,. We’re from hard-working, humble towns and we’re proud of it. We felt like the word “town” paid homage to that idea.
You have some stiff competition in the denim category, but seem to have introduced a unique offering. Can you talk about the approach here? Being that there’s so many denim brands to choose from, as well as heritage brands, what did you see was missing and made you want to introduce REVTOWN?
Our mission is to change the way people think about jeans. Denim is iconic, and jeans are a closet staple—from James Dean to Mick Jagger to you or me. In our past lives, we found ourselves wearing jeans everyday, but saw an opportunity to take this piece of clothing that we love and make it even better than we remember.
We knew we could make the product incredible, sourcing Italian fabric and infusing stretch to make super comfortable jeans. We knew we could operate extremely efficiently to ensure we could offer the product at a fair price. And we wanted to keep it simple—no slew of styles with confusing names or hardly-noticeable differences. Just the solid, timeless essentials that we’re reaching for 5 or 6 days of the week.
DECADE DENIM. I personally love your decade denim. Can you offer some insight into this staple of your brand and what DECADE DENIM offers that you can’t find anywhere else? Can you tell us a bit about the material, its durability, etc?
Definitely. Several of our founding members have backgrounds in the athletic apparel space. We spent a number of years developing and innovating fabrics for workout clothes. We wondered what would happen if we applied some of the best parts of performance apparel—like comfort, flexibility, and durability—and applied them to jeans.
That’s how Decade Denim was born.
Our Decade Denim is tried-and-true Italian denim, infused with a touch of stretch. We also blend in a super strong, durable thread—in fact it’s the strongest thread used in apparel today, like the stuff you might find in football pants or yoga leggings.
That’s what makes our denim incredibly comfortable, soft, but still structured. The best of both worlds.
The digital tailor tool is awesome. Honestly, I would’ve ordered a size too big if your digital tailor tool didn’t recommend the size it did… and they fit perfect. How does this work exactly? Because, with most denim brands I wear a usual size, but with REVTOWN DECADE DENIM, it’s a little different.
Glad to hear it! We get a lot of great feedback on our Digital Tailor and we are constantly working to evolve it.
There’s a number of fit tools on the market, but we developed our Digital Tailor custom. The type of fabric your clothing is made out of can affect the way it fits you, so we knew we needed something specific to our jeans and fabric.
We measured a ton of guys in our jeans to understand how elements like height, weight and body shape impact the way our jeans fit. So when you use our Digital Tailor, you’re not getting a size recommendation based on other brands or industry average—you’re getting a recommendation that’s specific to your body and to the specs of our jeans.
You guys were working with Under Armour before branching off with REVTOWN. What did you bring over from your experience at a sportswear brand to dive into denim?
One of the biggest learnings from that experience was the power and importance of brand building. From the customer experience to one-on-one conversations, representing the brand and making sure the customer has a positive, branded experience is top of mind for us at Revtown.
We also have spent years working in product development and fabric innovation across a number of apparel companies, so being able to use learnings from those experiences and has allowed us to experiment and try new things. I think it allows us to approach denim with a different, fresh perspective.
Can you talk about a future a little and what’s next or your overall goals for REVTOWN moving forward?
We had an incredible first year of business and our second year is looking just as exciting. We recently partnered with Nordstrom to launch at a number of their brick-and-mortar stores in addition to Nordstrom.com, which is an awesome opportunity for Revtown. We have a great strategic partner in Nordstrom and we’re pumped to share our brand with Nordstrom customers.
Another upcoming milestone for us will be the launch of our women’s line in the fall of 2019. We’re in the midst of developing our initial collection and we can’t wait to offer incredible denim to everyone. So keep your eyes open for that drop later this year!
All in all, our ambition is to be a great denim brand. Denim is at the core of our identity and over the next few years, we’ll be continuing to innovate in this space and bring a new, forward-thinking denim experience to as many people as possible.
For more info on Revtown’s DECADE DENIM and their company, visit them online RevtownUSA.com.
