It’s a Los Angeles-meets-Milan match made in heaven. California cool Mother denim has collaborated with JJ Martin’s La Double J fashion brand on a capsule collection debuting Thursday.
The 30-piece “Ciao Mamma!” collection has a print-tastic, ’70s vibe with denim, flowy dresses, skirts and shirts adorned with La Double J’s whimsical prints, plus vintage-inspired patches on sweatshirts and embroideries on denim.
The capsule will be available at Net-a-porter, Harrods, Le Bon Marche, ladoublej.com and motherdenim.com, as well as La Double J stores. Prices range from $120 to $1,290.
The companies share the value of handcraft, with Mother being one of the last brands making denim in L.A., and Martin dedicated to making clothing in Italy, referencing its rich textile heritage with luxe silk prints.
“Going into their design studio, it felt like entering my family living room.…It was just so cozy and energizing and immediate,” said the L.A.-bred, Milan-based Martin of the brand cofounded by Tom Kaeding and Lela Becker.
The collaboration has a friendly backstory — Becker is married to the son of Martin’s parents’ best friends. The older generation lived in the same Playa Del Rey duplex in Southern California, before moving to the Pacific Palisades, where the kids grew up.
Unfortunately, both La Double J and Mother are also bonded because they both lost soon-to-open retail stores in the Palisades Fire.
“We had two stores right next to each other, and by the way, that was all because Lela said we have a store opening, there’s a place next to it and do you want to come see it?” Martin said.
Becker and Kaeding said the prospect of their own retail and all the world-building that afforded had reinvigorated them. “We have quite a few things in the air that we’re trying to sort,” Becker said of finding a new location outside of the Palisades. “But we had the most beautiful store design ever, and we had put our merchandise in on Jan. 6,” which was the day before the fire erupted.
For now, they’re all leaning into the launch fun surrounding the collection, which will be feted in Paris with a Net-a-porter party on Sunday, and in L.A. later in the month.
“This is the Mother Mary goddess that was painted for the downstairs grotta of our Milan store, and they took it and made the coolest embroidery out of it and put it on their awesome oversized denim jacket,” Martin said, showing off the collection’s key piece. “A sense of playfulness and joy, as well as a love of vintage, is something that we all share. It’s like a spoken language….It was a merging of the best of what they do and the best of what we do, and then really seeing the way in which denim pairs itself so beautifully with print and silks.”
“It’s a much higher price point than we’ve done, which was a good opportunity,” Becker added. “Because of La Double J we could push it a little bit more.”
Disappearing craft in fashion is something they can all talk about forever.
“We’ve pushed away big machines making stuff, and things are still done by hand — every single piece, like someone is sanding it with sandpaper. And that’s a skill you learn over decades. After having been in denim for 25 years, I’m still blown away every time I go to a laundry or the sewing factories,” Kaeding said.
“You can get jeans for $19.95, you can get silk dresses for $19.95, and there is a hug difference in that and what we do, which is highly specialized and very specific. Could we make it cheaper? Yeah, of course. But there’s a reason we don’t, and that reason is because it’s a craft that we all believe in. We do it in our hometown, and we charge for it because it is better,” Martin said.
Martin has been working on broadening La Double J so it’s a complete wardrobe, including solids. as well as introducing jewelry and sneakers. She has also been focusing on her own retail expansion, with shops-in-shop in El Porte Ingles, Harrods, Le Samaritaine and Rinascente. But America is her biggest market, and the Pacific Palisades was supposed to be the first big U.S. flagship. But she is still on track to open in Palm Beach, Fla., and Dallas, and hopefully New York after that.
“And we’re still looking in L.A., so Lela and Tim, if you find another one and there’s something nice next door, let us know.”
