This Brand Wants You to Rethink Your Everyday Clothes

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

From Esquire

Daniel DuGoff wants to make everyday clothes that don't feel everyday-items that are immediately at home in your wardrobe, even if you didn't know you wanted them until you saw them for the first time. Perhaps that's why the designer behind the almost-eponymous label DDUGOFF describes his brand as a collection of "unbasic basics." Think wardrobe essentials with a little extra something: button-front shirts with dolman-sleeve detailing and a perfectly tuned-in fit, or classic coaches jackets in a sturdy nylon/cotton blend that drapes just so.

DuGoff launched the line in 2013 after clocking time at Marc by Marc Jacobs, Partrik Ervell, Derek Lam, and more, and sold his first collection in fall/winter 2014 in just two stores in Brooklyn. Now, a few years on, he's a member of the CFDA Incubator's fourth class, and his collection is carried at specialty shops across the U.S., Canada, and Japan, as well as online at ddugoff.com. We caught up with the New York-based designer while he was shooting his fall/winter 2017 lookbook-the images from which you can see right here-to talk about balancing art and commerce, the challenges facing young designers today, and why details are so damn important.

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

On walking the line between interesting and wearable:

Each piece of DDUGOFF is designed to strike the balance between fun and functional. When I think of traditional menswear, it's either a pristine suit or a rugged work uniform. These serve a purpose, but when I think about how guys dress today, it is much more relaxed. But casual clothes can breed complacency with boring basics-old T-shirts and jeans, oxford or gingham shirts that all look alike, sweatpants...

When I design each DDUGOFF collection, I'm thinking about a guy stuck in a boring routine and what he could wear instead, asking what feels in-step with his normal clothes, but also has some lightness, humor, and enjoyment. And at the same time, I'm dialing it back and making sure that the prints and fabrics and colors that make DDUGOFF unlike the other things in his closet aren't too foreign. I want him to want to wear these clothes every day, and if they feel too special, too precious, or too weird then they aren't going to be part of his daily wardrobe. It's a fine line to walk-making sure that each piece in the collection is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time-but it's exactly this opposition that is so inspiring.

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

On getting the details right:

The line has a limited vocabulary. This is important for menswear. I use the same collars, pockets, locker loops, buttons, sewing details, and so on across multiple styles, so that when you pick up a T-shirt and a shirt jacket they feel like they're from the same family. I love the pocket peaking up from inside another pocket on the shirt jacket, and this season there is a sweater with that shape applied as a stitch change, rather than a pocket. The entire line has navy locker loops on the back neck and the same stitch details at the opening of pockets. T-shirts and sweatshirts and shirt jackets have dolman sleeve constructions on the back. The different styles fit the same way-a shirt isn't going to sit vastly different from a sweater.

By keeping the vocabulary and fits within a limited range, there's more room to play with the fabrics. In an exaggerated silhouette a print or special fabric might feel like a costume, but when the shirt fits beautifully the novelty doesn't call too much attention to itself. To get away with having some fun it is crucial to have the fit and construction and fabric perfect.

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

"To get away with having some fun it is crucial to have the fit and construction and fabric perfect."

On fall/winter 2017:

The fall/winter 2017 collection was inspired by an image of a guy scribbling a permanent marker onto an old white car-trying to make the white car black. But the marker doesn't leave a perfectly black surface. When one stroke covers another, it picks up a bit of the black, showing some white underneath. These ideas of imperfect drawing and trying to completely block something out but being unable to cover it lead to the prints and embroideries in the collection. The allover scribble print covers one color with another, but you see the lighter color through it. Then a series of prints and embroideries play with using scribbles to mark points on a grid-either flat, or applied to mathematical shapes like a torus or sphere. The imperfect drawing representing something mathematically exact.

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

The color palate is muted light colors paired with a dark saturated relative-light blue with navy, faded oxblood with deep inky wine, camel with morel. The dark colors are scribbled over the lighter ones. I'm especially excited about the embroidered pockets on the shirts that are drawings of the inside of a torus-what a hollow donut would look like if you could peer inside. The pieces with this embroidery perfectly embody clothes that you can wear all the time, that you feel you should already own, with details that you've never seen before.

On the challenges facing young designers:

I could go on and on about how difficult it is to vie for the attention of buyers, press, factories, customers… But the biggest challenge is making products that are at once exciting and normal. It's a design challenge to excite customers-or buyers or press or factories-enough to believe in investing in a young brand. When everyone knows they can get basics from mass-market brands for next to nothing, young brands need to be clear about their value. Being "new" isn't enough. But I also feel that being overly heavy-handed with storytelling often comes across as insincere. I think it's clear through my clothes how much I care about the little things that make menswear special, and that the clothes feel like they can effortlessly become a part of your daily life.

"The biggest challenge is making products that are at once exciting and normal."

Photo credit: DDUGOFF
Photo credit: DDUGOFF

On what's exciting in the fashion industry right now:

There's a lot of talk right now about how we're on the edge of big change in the industry. How 'retail as we know it must change,' because direct-to-consumer brands are filling up everyone's inbox with offers, because everything is already on sale by the time it's seasonally appropriate, because there are so many new brands each season, because traditional retail stores aren't pulling in the same volume they did pre-2008, and on and on. It feels like there's the opportunity to redefine what it means to shop, and that's exciting-if also a bit unnerving.

On the future of DDUGOFF:

DDUGOFF is consistent in its offerings, even if collections look quite different. The way the clothes fit is dependable season to season. The prints, colors, and fabrics change. I was in Taipei this fall through the CFDA Incubator's partnership with W Hotels. I'm about to, in the next couple of days, start working on what spring/summer 2018 will look like, and I'm using that trip as a jumping-off point for the collection. There was incredible plant life in the city, not to mention colors to work with from the buildings, food, and art. I already have some ideas brewing from an unreal morning I spent on a mountaintop in the clouds hiking though tall grasses to get to a waterfall.

You Might Also Like