3sixteen

Andrew Chen and Johan Lam founded 3sixteen in New York in 2003. It started as a small graphic T-shirt line and became, over the following decade, one of the more serious denim projects in the United States, largely because the founders stopped treating cloth as something you buy and started treating it as something you commission. The house denim is developed with Kuroki Mills in Okayama, Japan, woven there on shuttle looms, then cut and sewn in the United States.

That habit of specifying the material rather than accepting what is offered runs through the rest of the line. The collared cardigan is knit in Peru from pima cotton and closed with corozo nut fisheye buttons. The work blazers are made in Portugal, one in tobacco cotton and one in grey wool. The T-shirt packs are American-grown pima. None of this is announced loudly. You find it on the spec line, which is where the brand has always preferred to make its case.

3sixteen at W Department

W Department carries 3sixteen across FW25 and SS25 in menswear and womenswear, thirty-eight pieces from $97 to $475. The denim is the spine: the CS-100x classic straight in raw indigo selvedge, the rinsed indigo kibata cut of the same, the CT-222xs stonewashed black taper, and the Type 3s jacket in washed blue and double black, all made in the USA. Around it sits the workwear vocabulary the house has built out patiently, fatigue and cargo pants, the cotton canvas service pant, the French work jacket in indigo, the BDU jacket in black back satin, crosscut flannels in slub check and twill, and the liner jacket. We wrote about the eyewear in The Library when the P3 round and square frames arrived, cut from Italian acetate with castor oil nylon lenses.

3sixteen is where a wardrobe starts. It is the most quietly rigorous clothing in the store at the price, and it wears in rather than out.

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Continue Exploring

• All 3sixteen. Denim, workwear, knits, and eyewear, everything we hold.
• 3sixteen Eyewear. The P3 frames, cut from Italian acetate with castor oil nylon lenses.
• Engineered Garments. Daiki Suzuki’s New York house, built on vintage workwear and military patterns.
• 4S Designs. Angelo Urrutia’s line, twenty years in the Engineered Garments studio behind it.
• Denim at W Department. Every jean, jacket, and denim piece on the floor.
• Visit W Department. 54½ Lincoln Avenue on The Plaza, open daily, 11 to 5.

Shop 3sixteen