Jarod John Leonard: rock and roll, made quietly

Jarod John Leonard is not one person. The name belongs to a label started by two friends — Jarod, based in Oxfordshire, and Clark Reeve, based on the Lower East Side of New York — who first met as kids in an Xbox lobby playing Gears of War. Years later they are building something considerably slower: rock-and-roll menswear, made to a standard most young labels do not attempt. This week it lands in Europe for the first time, and it lands at ANSH46.

Taught by the archive

Neither founder went to fashion school. They learned by taking the work of others seriously: studying archive pieces, reading the seams, tracing the labels on old garments back to the mills that wove them, and then contacting those mills directly. The brand was started without big money behind it — minimums were negotiated, and whatever came in went straight back into the next run.

The result is a label that sources the way the old houses do. The founders talk about fabrics from mills that also supply names like Brunello Cucinelli and Ermenegildo Zegna, leather from tanneries in the orbit of the great French leather houses, Japanese-made flannels finished with mother-of-pearl buttons, and boots made by hand in Italy.

Design visually first

Their method starts with pictures, not patterns. References are gathered first — silhouettes, interiors, musicians, artists — and only then comes the question of how that feeling becomes a garment. The feeling they keep coming back to is rock-and-roll luxury, but without the costume: less excess, more of a daydream. It is there in the label's own line, JJL invites you to dream.

'1974' and what comes next

The debut collection, '1974', is transatlantic rock energy seen through a lens of city grit. Its anchor is the Bruce denim, a straight, mid-seventies silhouette that takes its cue from the working-man's jeans of the era's biggest American rock star. Around it: suede trucker jackets, Western embroidered leather boots with a full stacked leather heel, and a belt with a music-note motif that has quietly travelled a long way on its own.

The next chapter, 'English Gardens', moves from the city to the countryside — silk shirts and pastoral references, closer to where Jarod lives.

Buying it

Think of the denim and the boots as the entry points: they carry the brand's whole idea in one piece and they are made to be worn for years, not seasons. Fits are true to the era they reference — the denim sits straight rather than skinny — so take your usual size. Production is small by design, and styles are not guaranteed to come back.

At ANSH46

This is the first time Jarod John Leonard is available in Europe, and we are proud to be the ones carrying it. Shop the new arrivals from Jarod John Leonard, or see menswear and our store on the Van Oldenbarneveltstraat in Rotterdam.