Matt Baldwin is a mash up. A Midwesterner by birth, he headed out West to carve lines in the Colorado mountains for a while before getting serious about clothing design and attending LA’s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in the late 90′s. With Cali-surf accent in tow and design chops aplenty, he eventually hauled back to Kansas City, MO where he and his wife have steadily built their Standard Style empire over the last decade. And now with that business on cruise control, he’s pushed out with his own line of denim called, logically, Baldwin Denim. The line, like Baldwin himself, mixes Midwestern roots (all his jeans feature a triple-stich yoke influenced by Kansas City’s Lee Jean pedigree) with a twist or two of Californian, clean-lined modernism. The result is one helluva good-looking and great-fitting jean. We’ve had the slim, straight Baldwin “Reed” in a dry indigo wash for several months now and just added another Reed in a perfectly distressed “Colorado” wash this week. They’re both the only yellow selvage denims we’ve ever seen, and their fits are by far and away our best selling slim, straight jean. Do come and see.
