Adventure Lifestyle | Agave Denim

CAMPAIGN PREVIEW FALL 2012

It’s friday afternoon and for the first time since I can remember, the April showers have waned and the sun is shining just north of Portland, Oregon. Our photographer Jason, his assistant Pat, and our two lovely models Sviatlana and Bret arrive at our design studio and distribution center adjacent to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Washington. We pick out the clothing we want to shoot and my brother Brad and I load up my Cobalt Blue Audi R8 for the trip along the coast of Oregon and California that will culminate at the WWD Denim Summit at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

Some background: I grew up around the ocean and in the mountains. My youth was spent fishing, scuba diving, waterskiing, and surfing off the coast of Southern California. Whenever I could, I went snow skiing in Big Bear, the Sierra Nevada, and Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. I was a hardcore skier and a daily surfer ever since I was 16-years old and participated in the Outward Bound 21-day wilderness survival course in the Northern Washington Cascades. Six years ago, I moved my family from a Topanga Canyon cottage house to a home on five acres in the woods north of Portland, in the state of Washington. Currently, I am an avid fly fisherman and I love to row a driftboat and paddle a kayak. I have traveled extensively in Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, British Columbia, and Alberta, Canada. As a kid, I wanted to become a forest ranger or marine biologist. I am very connected to nature. To me, nature is God. I am very upset by human pollution and climate change. I love natural beauty.

For these reasons, I work with the simple colors found in nature. When I see denim, I see the blue of the water and sky. When I see leather, I see the brown of wood. When I see indigo shades, I see the green of plants and trees. When I see buttons, I see the off-whites of rocks. I love the balance and the purity of it all. After a week in the factories in Los Angeles or shopping in New York or Paris, I love to return to the silence of my home in the woods where air and water are pristine and clear.

The first stop on our trip to Los Angeles is the Japanese Garden in Portland. Agave would not be Agave without the influence of Japanese culture. The primary manufacturer for our jeans in Los Angeles is a Japanese-owned and operated company. Most of our men’s denim fabric and much of our women’s denim fabric is produced in Japan. My design is Zen-like: Nothing is forced, nothing is over-designed.

Denim designers today are usually inspired by one of two concepts: One is city nightlife and the other is vintage workwear. My designs for Agave have always been inspired by workwear. To me, workwear calls to mind mining, farmers, carpenters, and blacksmiths—people who work with their hands in nature. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada are where denim jeans first captured our nation’s imagination. As part of my research when starting the Agave brand, I traveled extensively through the region of California known as Highway 49. This area has some of the most beautiful natural beauty on the planet. It is the office where the pioneers of the gold rush worked every day.

Our road trip passes through Cannon Beach and Tillamook Bay, where we find panoramic views and pastures filled with fog. Jason takes photos of Bret that have the feeling of a guy hitchhiking cross-country. It reminds me of when I was younger, and I hitched from Flagstaff, Arizona to Durango, Colorado across the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in Arizona and Colorado. We stay in a motel on the beach in Newport, Oregon and wake up to a gorgeous sunrise and impossibly calm beach.

In SoCal, when I was a kid, you could drive two hours and be up in Big Bear, or water-skiing on Lake Arrowhead, or skiing or snowboarding up at Big Bear. You could go five hours up to Mammoth for skiing. You could go to Indian Dunes, which is up in Valencia, or Saddleback and race motocross. You could go race flat track at Irwindale Speedway or at Ascot Park. There were venues all over the city and places close by that you could go, besides all the surf spots that are currently there. If you were into the outdoor or the active environment, you could go on a Tuesday and bust out onto Trojan Speedway.

Today, you will wind up sitting in traffic for hours just to get to Lake Arrowhead, or you’ll go up to Mammoth and wait in line for two hours just to get on the chairlift. All the motocross tracks have been shut down for insurance reasons. But in Portland, you can go surfing an hour-and-a-half west of the city. You can go skiing an hour-and-a-half east. You can go fly-fishing in downtown. You can cross-country ski, you can hunt, you can fish; there’s skate parks all over Portland—all free. So, if you’re into an active outdoor adventure lifestyle, as long as you’re willing to deal with the fact that there’s rain, it’s a dream come true. And then there’s no bullshit that goes with it, so it’s a great lifestyle.

About an hour down the coast, we find a beautiful spot on the ocean with volcanic rock out-croppings and pine trees. It’s very romantic. From there, we head to Petrolia, where we stay at an old lodge. In the morning, we head into the Redwoods. Like the Japanese Garden, the massive trees inspire awe. We get there at the perfect moment—the sun streaming in through the forest canopy. Next, we head east along the Trinity River towards Redding, California. As a fly fisherman, I have spent months, if not years, on the banks of rivers just like the Trinity, where the flowing water, canyon walls, plants, and birds make for an idyllic scene.

Next stop is in San Luis Obispo, and then Santa Ynez, where we find classic California green grass hills smattered with large oaks. We stop on the rolling highway. It’s pure California. On the way to Santa Barbara we find a property that lined their driveway in agave cacti. We drop down the San Marcos Pass into Santa Barbara. The Channel Islands were the backdrop of my teen years—especially during my daily surf.

On the way out of Santa Barbara, we get onto the 101, and are jolted by the gridlock. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. When we finally pull into the lot of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood for the WWD Denim Summit, we feel a sense of relief. Though one of our journeys has ended, another is about to begin.