It's all in the jeans

Published on Monday 27 April 2009 20:03

THE young Scot behind Europe's only bespoke denim label has entered the premier league, with a special order for his 'Handmade in Glasgow' jeans from Manchester United players. Alice Wyllie goes to meet him

TIMES may be tight, but the trend for designer denim shows no sign of slowing: this season, for example, the truly stylish will have their eye on an artfully distressed pair of jeans by the French fashion house Balmain, priced at just over 1,000.

Many who might balk at spending hundreds of pounds on formal tailoring would think nothing of shelling out upwards of 180 for a pair of swanky denims by designers such as J Brand or Rock & Republic.

It's all in pursuit of the perfect fit. Male or female, stumpy or lithe, round-bottomed or svelte, locating the jeans that make you look taller/thinner/less like an overstuffed haggis is like manna from heaven, which is presumably why so many of us seem so willing to stump up so much for a couple of yards of denim and a few rivets.

Robert Watson, a "clothing technologist" from Glasgow, thinks everyone should know the joy of a pair of jeans that hug in all the right places. This is what led him to create made-to-measure denims for men and women under his label Rabii Denim, from 215 a pair. He manufactures all his jeans by hand at Che Camille, a studio/ retail space six floors above Glasgow's Buchanan St – and today he's particularly busy.

Watson has just taken a delivery of denim in shades ranging from punky electric blue to dark charcoal, and he'll be transforming the bales into more than 20 pairs of bespoke jeans for the legendarily style-conscious footballers of Manchester United.

Mere mortals get the chance to see his work up close, alongside that of nine other talented Glasgow-based designers, at a series of catwalk shows at Che Camille this Friday and Saturday. Camille Lorigo, an elegant and softly spoken New Yorker, is the brains behind Glasgow's hippest new retail space (and also Watson's fiance).

Something of a cheeky chappy in a scruffy trucker cap with a cowboy shirt tucked in on one side and, of course, a unique pair of jeans, Watson was recently asked by Nicholas Jones – a Manchester tailor who already makes clothes for the players at Manchester United – to travel south and kit out some of the players, many of whom find it hard to buy jeans that fit their long legs or muscular thighs.

"I had my mum on the phone giving it, 'Oh son, I'd love to get my measuring tape round that Ronaldo…'" laughs Watson. He remains tight-lipped as to whether he got Cristiano Ronaldo's inside-leg measurement, but does reveal that he's making jeans for seven of the players, each of whom ordered at least two pairs. He plans to have the whole team kitted out in his distinctive designs, which feature an embroidered badge on the back pocket, proudly proclaiming that each pair is "Handmade in Glasgow".

"It's just like their cars," he explains. "In the car park (you would see] six models of the same car, because they all see one player with a new car and want the same one. When the other players see these denims, man, they'll all want a pair!"

Michael Carrick opted for four pairs, while goalkeeper Edwin Van Der Sar was just pleased he could finally get a pair of jeans to fit (he has a 37" inside leg). "He was like, 'Dude, my legs are long, man. Sort me out!'" says Watson. "Then you have some of the other boys, whose legs are too short, so they can't get jeans to fit either. But then they've got those big, beefy thighs, so that's a problem for them too."

Watson makes all his jeans from untreated Japanese denim and will cater to almost any requirement. Customers pick their preferred colour of thread and fit, and can then opt for details such as reversed pockets, turn-ups or belt loops. He even made a Scissor Sisters-inspired pair for one customer, with a nipple-high waistband, and has already bought some sugar-pink thread in preparation for any Wags who may hanker after a pair.

Watson says he owes his love of tailoring to his mother, a retired seamstress, and also in part to his own stubbornness: his father tried to dissuade his son from pursuing a career in fashion. "My mum made my clothes when I was a wee boy, but they weren't cool – at least, they weren't as cool as I wanted," he says. "So because I went home moaning about it, she just said, 'Well son, you draw the pictures, I'll make the clothes.' I did that until I was 18, then she wanted to retire. She never touched a sewing-machine again but she told me, 'Son, a monkey can draw a picture; go and learn how to sew. And I thought, 'OK then, I will.'"

After studying clothing manufacturing at Cardonald College, then working as a junior tailor with TJ Mathews in Hamilton, Watson branched out on his own nine years ago, quickly discovering a talent for working with denim. He has since enjoyed a steady stream of customers, many of whom found out about him by word of mouth, and some of whom have even chased after him on the street, asking where he got his eye-catching jeans. However, since moving to Che Camille's new retail space earlier this year, he's been besieged by customers.

"Boom, boom, boom," he says, when I ask him how business is going. "It's exploding. If something's good, people find out about it. I thought this up nine years ago, but it's only now that it's really taking off. The past nine years have all been leading up to these past few weeks. I'm invoicing the players at Manchester United next week, and I think I'll use the money to go on holiday – my first holiday in years."

His next project will be designing Harris Tweed jeans – and then there's a client in Dubai who's after 100 pairs of denims, which should keep him busy for quite a while. In the meantime, he's hard at work every day until the wee hours, kitting out some of the most valuable legs in the country.

&#149 Rabii Denim is stocked exclusively at Che Camille in Glasgow. Visit www.checamille.com