Men's Lucky Brand Fashion Brand

The Lucky Brand record begins, unusually for this letter, with one man's route into the industry. In 1978, Gene moved to enter into the Los Angeles fashion industry. With partner Michael Caruso he started Bongo and ran the brand for 15 years. After leaving Bongo, Gene teamed up with his old business partner Barry Perlman in 1990 to launch Lucky Brand. The founder's full name is Gene Montesano - and the sequence matters: this was not a first attempt. Years in Los Angeles fashion and a long-running brand behind him stand behind the 1990 launch, and the partner he launched with was an old one, not a new hire.

Lucky Brand Jeans is an American denim company founded in Vernon, California in 1990 by Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman. Gene & Barry created a brand that is known for the attention to detail put into each pair of jeans. This along with the stitching of "Lucky You" on the fly, accomplishes the goal that Gene & Barry set out to do; to create a product of good quality & good humor. That pairing - good quality and good humor - is the brand's whole character in one line, and the "Lucky You" fly stitching is its signature joke: a detail placed where only the wearer, and anyone he chooses to show, will ever see it.

Vintage-Inspired Jeans, Finished by Hand

Staying true to the rich heritage and authentic, all-American spirit of denim, Lucky Brand began crafting great-fitting, vintage-inspired jeans in Los Angeles in 1990. They gave them their distinctively Lucky look by literally putting them through the wringer. This including ripping, fraying, sanding, patching and washing them by hand to give them true character and soul. Then, they added authentic hardware, personalized touches and playful details, and an American legend was born. Read that process list as a buying guide in reverse: a Lucky pair is deliberately distressed - ripped, frayed, sanded, patched and hand-washed - so the checks that matter are whether the distressing is even and intentional, whether patched and sanded areas still hold their strength, and whether the fit underneath the finishing is great-fitting.

In addition to trendy jeans, Lucky Brand is known for men's shirts, sweaters, hoodies, jackets, graphic tees, and more, and the range widens further: Lucky also produces sportswear, outerwear, T-shirts and active wear. T-shirts and pants beside the jeans match that broader record. Jeans are the founding garment and the famous one, but the brand a man actually shops, on this record, is a full casual wardrobe built around denim's all-American spirit.

The record ends with a change of ownership, dated and priced. In December 2013, Leonard Green & Partners acquired Lucky Brand Jeans for $225 million from Fifth & Pacific Companies. That line is worth keeping exactly - buyer, seller, price and month - because it is the kind of verifiable fact a brand directory exists to hold, and because it marks the point where the founders' 1990 Vernon, California company passed, twenty-three years on, into investment ownership.

Reading This Lucky Brand Record

Read as a buying guide, Lucky Brand is the character record of the L letter. Judge the jeans on the founding promise - attention to detail in each pair, a great fit under hand-done vintage finishing, authentic hardware and the "Lucky You" fly stitching as the brand's good-humor signature - and judge the wider range of shirts, sweaters, hoodies, jackets and graphic tees as the casual wardrobe that grew around the denim. The directory's Lucky Brand Profile route and the women's Lucky Brand page, both linked here, carry the research onward.

Lucky Brand, under L in the Men's Fashion Brands directory: an American denim company founded in Vernon, California in 1990 by Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman, built on vintage-inspired, hand-finished jeans of good quality and good humor, and acquired in December 2013 by Leonard Green & Partners for $225 million. That is the whole of the factual record, with no added claims.

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