JEAN SHOP
435 W. 14th St.
212-366-5326
The jeans bar in Barneys Co-op still has the advantage in breadth of brands, but connoisseurs who shop for reasons beyond convenience are coming here for their denim. The four-month-old 1,800-square-foot shop next to Stella McCartney is decorated in Early Redneck, with unfinished wood shelves and racks of leather jackets, but the yokel stops there. There are only two styles available to men or women: a classic straight cut and a relaxed fit, cut from premium Japanese denim in deep indigo. But then you choose various treatments and finishing techniques to create your unique, singular distress pattern. A little bit of fade around the knees? A full-on blast, complete with hanging threads and busted seams? You choose. Either way, a finished pair takes about a week, and costs between $240 and $400. But hey, that’s not much more than you’d pay for something everyone else has.