STAN by Tristen Detwiler

STAN is a men’s and women’s fashion label designed by San Diego native Tristen Detwiler. The brand’s Spring/Summer 2022 was presented at New York’s Men’s Day held at Canoe Studios, in the Hudson Yards neighborhood.

Americana, is a culture and history of objects crafted in materials characteristic of the United States. It’s a large diverse scope of storytelling and nuance. The STAN collection rooted in Americana and sourcing antique and found American fabrications. STAN’s sustainable agenda has drawn a great deal of attention, criticism and comparison by fashion followers. STAN’s fall 2021 was called out by a couple of highly influential, critical, sometimes astute and often heedless fashion voices, questioning ‘but is this fashion?’ one out cry was cynically dismissive as ‘white boy folly’, a copy, a less than expression of another brand in the market working in the same ilk. It may not always feel like it, but there is one America, it’s a large country with a vast number of creative expressions and narratives from prairie to mountain top and sea to shining sea. The milieu of Americana is inclusive of a multitude of textiles, decorative arts, folk art, expressions of craft and fashion. It does not singularly belong to one fashion designer mentored by a luxury department store.

The Spring/Summer 2022 STAN collection continued the brand’s approach to fashion and vintage fabrication in quilting and embroidery. STAN took an elevated turn for Spring/ Summer 2022. The setting of the presentation included vintage sewing machines and an actual quilter. Textiles and their stories, ownership and visible patina are still at the aesthetic core of this rising brand’s style.

What was notably different for the label was the visible sophistication for the forthcoming spring/summer 2022 season. STAN still maintains a relaxed statement, but has shifted to include more tailored details within their jacket silhouettes. Sizable peaked lapels with nineteen seventies proportions, highlighting contrasting asymmetrical geometric brick patterns reminiscent of Amish quilting motifs. The proportions are a directional menswear style hailing from London. There were a number of patch pocket details contributing to balancing the tailored, statements while recognizing the humble materiality.

However, Detwiler has not abandoned his surfer, West Coast sensibility, there were trucker silhouettes and anorak shapes in brightly colored quilted textiles suitable for men and for women appropriate for the early spring days at the beach. The trousers and shorts were mostly drawstring with a braided detail making a connection to our current lives of active sportswear. The collection was a burst of color, form subtle neutral shades with red brick patches to soft pastels of green, pink and bright yellow. The brightly colored styles highlighted medallion quilting motifs.

Conscience or chance or lost myth? There was text in a few of the trucker styled, quilted jackets linked to a larger American story.

‘Connection’ was a word that stood out in one of the looks on a female model. The inclusion of text in quilting is part of the memory quilting style. ‘1940 Pennsylvania’ was also spotted on an anorak, a duel historical message in nineteen forty the state was the key state in the national elections delivering Roosevelt a third term in office.

The text ‘c.1920 Ohio’, also has a number of American messages. Both Presidential candidates in nineteen twenty were form the heartland state of Ohio. The Great Northward Migration of African-Americans from the south had a zenith during the early and inter-war period of the twentieth century with Pennsylvania and Ohio as a destinations of note. Events and stories around this American chapter were portrayed in a significant series created by painter Jacob Lawrence. Aspects of Lawrence’s palate drew from the African American tradition of quilting, patchwork and repurposed utilitarian fabrication. Due to the nature of the textiles the visual impact of the presentation of STAN at NYMD communicated the essential characteristics of artistry curated by a painterly eye for design.

Antique ticking fabric was also part of the spring/ summer collection paired with five pocket style. STAN’s log cabin quilting patterns were also quite striking in a cropped peaked lapel jacket. The layering through out the collection added to STAN’s particular American storytelling.

This was a beautiful and strong collection clearly moving the brand forward, Tristen Detwiler is forging ahead and pursuing his interest and his narratives of America.

Patrick Michael Hughes Senior Fashion Editor- Men’s Fashion Writer