Battenwear Time Travels to 1960s & 70s California 

Battenwear Cooperative Preorders are now CLOSED -- The SS23 collection will be launched online in March 2023 

Battenwear Spring/Summer 2023 began over lunch with our 90-year-old neighbor Alvin at our design studio in Topanga Canyon. We had recently been on a 1960s and 70s kick, spending a lot of time looking at photo books like Dennis Stock's California Trip and listening to Pet Sounds. 

Over sandwiches, we asked Alvin what he first thought of California when he moved here from New York in the 1970s. 

"No one was wearing a suit!" he exclaimed, laughing, still amazed 50 years later.

We laughed too, because we assumed that Alvin wasn't wearing a suit either when he arrived in Santa Monica. In Manhattan, Alvin had been a landscape artist (for apartment fire escapes), and he owned a flower shop that catered to the Fillmore East, where he met Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and had all sorts of adventures. 

Despite his refined hippie standards, California's laid back fashion STILL impressed Alvin. "Everyone dressed so casually on the street. I don't mean they were sloppy. More like they were done with suits. I had to figure out a new wardrobe."

 

We can't time travel back to California's heyday to people watch and clothes shop with Alvin in Santa Monica, so instead we created Battenwear Spring/Summer 2023. We sprinkled the collection with retro hues of lavender and sea foam, and chose new fits and fabrics that emphasize Battenwear's already deliberate approach to casual. 

We're particularly excited to introduce you to our supremely comfortable new Rugby Tee. We have brought back and refined the Stretch Climbing Shorts, which look slim and smart while still being stretchy and comfortable in the summer heat. Plus, we've completely overhauled the Topanga Pullover for a version 2, giving it a boxier shape and making it in light, comfy fabrics that yell "summer" at the top of their lungs. 

Thanks, Alvin! You're the best kind of muse!