What do actors George Clooney and Edward Burns, former tennis stars Mats Wilander and Mikael Pernfors, golfer Jesper Parnevik and rapper Andre 3000 all have in common?
They own a pair of Buckley jeans. Why should anyone in Vero Beach care?
Because the man who created Buckley Denim – the small, fledgling company that uses antique looms and machinery to make upscale, long-lasting, designer jeans for men – just happens to live here.
“When I started out three years ago, my goal was to make the best pair of jeans in the world,” island resident Jim Buckley said. “I guess if you ask George Clooney, that’s what I’ve done.”
That’s what Buckley has heard, anyway.
“He said these are his favorite jeans,” Buckley said. “At least that’s what he told somebody. Who knows?”
I don’t.
But I have seen the jeans, which are selling locally for $195 per pair at Buckley’s small shop at 1183A 19th Street, as well as nationally on his BuckleyDenim.com website and at several high-end boutiques and men’s specialty shops across the country.
And I interviewed Buckley at length, listening to him explain how he had spent more than two decades in the vintage clothing business in Atlanta before moving to Vero Beach in 2005 and embarking on a personal mission to create the perfect pair of jeans by combining modern design and sizing with the classic denim and old-school craftsmanship of yesteryear.
I couldn’t help but come away as impressed with his product as I was intrigued by his story, which, when you hear how and where his jeans are made, sounds like a nostalgia-soaked script for a Hallmark Channel movie.
A dozen “old ladies,” as Buckley called them, making jeans by hand, using sewing machines, cutters and other equipment from the 1950s and ‘60s, taking up to four hours to finish one pair?
Working with the initially stiff, indigo- colored, unwashed and untreated selvedge denim, woven on outdated looms from Supima cotton for a more durable but ultimately softer-feeling pair of jeans?
All of this done in a small, metal building at the end of a dirt road at the base of a mountain in Blue Ridge, Ga., a picturesque, Mayberry-like town near the Tennessee and North Carolina state lines?
“Sounds made up, doesn’t it?” Buckley said. “But that’s how they’re made, and these ladies are really good at what they do.”
They better be: The upscale, designer jeans market is extremely competitive.
“There are a lot of high-end jeans priced in the $400 to $800 range,” Buckley said. “The first 4,000 pairs I sold went for $300 apiece. I’ve come down to $195, and if you go to one of the boutiques or specialty stores in New York City, mine will be the least expensive jeans in the place.”
They’ll also be the best, he added.
“The fit is the hallmark of the jean,” Buckley said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re skinny, if you’re big, if you’ve got no butt or you’ve got a big butt. These jeans will fit really, really well and make you look great.”
Buckley’s jeans aren’t custom-made, but they come in two fits – slim and classic, both with a straight-leg cut – and in odd and even sizes, with waists ranging from 28 to 40 inches. They’re also made long, so they’ll usually require hemming, unless you’d prefer to simply fold up the legs a la Beaver Cleaver.
If you buy them in his shop here, Buckley will personally hem the jeans for you.
“With the two fits and the sizes we offer, I can fit anybody perfectly,” he said. “And you can wear them either as work jeans or as casual office attire. If you were a coal miner or a cowboy out West, this is what you wore 100 years ago. But because they’re darker and lightweight, they can be dressy, too.
“You can wear them with a sport coat, button-down shirt and loafers,” he added. “They’re great for casual Fridays or Friday night wear. My brother is a lawyer in Atlanta and he said he sees someone wearing my jeans at least once a day.”
If Buckley sounds like a jeans expert, he is – or has become one. Though he had some experience with old-fashioned Levi’s from his years in the vintage clothing business – he still owns the shop in Atlanta – he needed to know more to succeed in his new venture.
So he spent two years educating himself on everything from how jeans were made, to the different types of denim from which they’re made, to the various machines and tools needed to make them.
“I rented this old warehouse down on Old Dixie and went out and bought every sewing machine that made the original Levi’s 100 years ago,” Buckley said. “I was buying machines in Cambodia and China, from wherever I could find them. Some of them weighed 3,000 pounds. Some were broken when they arrived here, so I had to learn how to fix them. Then I had to learn how to sew on them.
“Did you know it takes about 12 machines to make one pair of jeans?” he added. “I thought you could make a pair of jeans with one machine, but making jeans isn’t easy. Anyway, it was during those two years that I came up with my design and figured out exactly what I needed to make the type of product I wanted.
“I probably threw out 1,000 pairs before I decided on a fit.”
Once he did, however, he then needed to convince a denim manufacturer to supply the top-shelf material he wanted.
“The raw denim we use is a little harder, a little stiffer because it hasn’t been washed or treated, but it breaks in really nicely and the texture has a great feel to it,” Buckley said. “But the places that make it don’t sell to just anybody – there are only five places in the world that make it, only one place in this country, in the Raleigh, N. Ca., area – because there’s a limited supply and it’s really expensive.
“That’s why the jeans are so expensive,” he added. “But I guess these people liked my story and they took me on. They sell to only a dozen other jeans companies.”
Buckley believes his is the smallest.
“We’re probably the smallest jeans company in the world,” he said, adding that he has sold roughly 5,000 pairs since he put his product on the market two years ago.
Buckley rents the 500-square-foot shop where he meets with customers – by appointment only, unless they happen to walk in when he’s there – and puts the finishing touches on his jeans. He inspects, tags and signs every pair he sells.
A few times each year, he’ll jump in his car and travel the southeastern U.S., visiting high-end boutiques and men’s specialty shops to push his product.
Among the stores that regularly stock Buckley Jeans are: Lost Boy Dry Goods in Miami; 310 Rosemont in Atlanta; Fred Segal in Los Angeles and Khaki’s of Carmel in California; The Oxford Shop in Nashville, Tenn.; and Grady Ervin in Charleston, S. Ca.
Buckley, 52, also advertises using his website and social-media outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. Mostly, though, he relies on word of mouth.
“It’s hard to explain the brand,” he said. “We’ve had people place orders online without ever trying them on, but it helps if you actually see and feel the jeans.”
Buckley said he has stayed away from department stores “because they’re too hard to deal with.”
Besides, he believes it’s the smaller, high-end boutiques and specialty shops “where you really make a name for yourself.”
Not only is it his name on the jeans, but he also has committed about $100,000 of his own money to the cause, so it’s important to him to protect the brand – especially as he starts to seek investors.
“I wanted to do something different, something original, something that was mine, where I could be creative and have fun and take pride in the product,” Buckley said. “People have tried to partner up and invest in me along the way, but I wasn’t looking for that. This was a passion, something I enjoyed doing, and I didn’t need the money.
“But now I’m at a point where I’d like to see it grow, because there’s a solid foundation here,” he continued. “That wasn’t the case a year or two ago. Now, the word has started to spread. The stores that sell these jeans do well with them. The hard work has been done. There’s a real opportunity to take this to the next level, do more sales and even expand the product line.
“If I were a bigger company, I could charge $500 a pair,” he added. “It’s just a matter of advertising and promoting the brand, which takes more people and more money. So I’m ready for someone to step up, because I think we make the most comfortable pair of jeans in the world.”
Just ask George Clooney.