Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown isn’t satisfied with the status quo. Since joining the NBA in 2016, the Georgia native has challenged what has come to expected from a superstar athlete, especially in his pursuits away from the basketball court. This is why Brown demands more of our education system. It’s why he seeks to systematically tackle income inequality in Boston. And it’s why he and his apparel brand 7uice plan to disrupt the conventional with their latest product launch.
Starting on January 5 of this year, Brown and his team will release a new line of leather jackets, available on the 7uice website. It’s a project steeped in history and aimed at bucking the pitfalls of mass consumerism. The jackets themselves are made specifically by artisan craftspeople at Vanson Leather in Fall River, Massachusetts, and are meant to celebrate the region’s heritage of quality and craft.
The design, meanwhile, has its origins in a rebellious chapter of professional motorcycle racing. Unexpected, right?
“When I created 7uice, the core identities of the brand centered on three pillars,” Brown told Celtics Wire. “Community, energy, and style.”
“For this collection, it was important for me to collaborate with a brand that has been known to uphold those same attributes throughout their history. And Vanson was the perfect choice.” Brown said.
Celtics Wire spoke to Brown and 7uice about the striking imagery adorning the jackets, Vanson and 7uice’s shared commitment to quality, and the connections the project has to culture and to New England.
As such, we will get to the jackets in a moment. But first, a brief history lesson.
David Aldana is one of motorsports’ most beloved rebels. Born in Santa Ana, California in 1949 to a family of motorcycle enthusiasts, a young Aldana made a name for himself as a teenager in a subculture known for tough attitudes and tougher racing. And when he turned pro in 1970, Aldana authored one of the most memorable rookie seasons in American Motorcycle Association history.
Soon Aldana had built a notorious reputation as a speedster uninterested in playing it safe. “If you don’t fall off now and then, you don’t know how fast you can go,” Aldana once said of his penchant for rebounding after a crash.
💀 Legendary David Aldana 💀 pic.twitter.com/Y1ARztbphD
— シゲボー (@shiigeeboo) August 17, 2023
But it wasn’t just Aldana’s racing style that shook things up. In 1975, he opened the season racing in an all-black leather suit featuring a white skeleton across the front, a move that almost got him banded from the AMA. At the time, the motorcycle racing world was trying hard to shed its outlaw reputation.
Aldana didn’t care, however, and the jacket served as a boney middle finger not just to the AMA’s sanitation effort but seemingly to the specter of death itself.
In the years since, Aldana and his skeleton jacket have earned a following for those who seek to buck the conventional. That includes Jaylen Brown and 7uice. One of 7uice’s creative directors Shawn Clarke explained to Celtics Wire why Brown and his team are so attracted to Aldana’s legacy and his cadaverous jacket.
“We like the disruptiveness,” Clarke told Celtics Wire. “When Aldana first did the bone design, he disrupted the culture. Once he did it, it became a statement fashion piece. And we just connected with that and that design.”
“We loved how that resonated to what 7uice means to us,” Clarke said. “It’s a disruptive culture, and it’s progressive as well.”
Aldana’s rebelliousness was provocative, and caught the attention of Vanson Leathers. In 1974 Vanson began making hand-made motorcycle jackets in Fall River, MA, and they liked Aldana’s resilience. This is why Vanson began to sponsor the racer in the 1980s. They’ve offered their signature line of Bones jackets ever since.
For those in the know, the symbolism of this particular partnership is iconic, particularly in the motorcycle world. But Vanson has extended its reach much further in the broader culture in the years since, while always maintaining a sense of craft and history.
When Vanson Leathers first set up shop in the seventies, it moved into a building with deep ties to New England’s past. Not just because some of the machines and floor boards are originals from as far back as the 1880s, but because the facility represents the unique heritage for Fall River and the New England region. Time for another brief history lesson.
Fall River’s particular story is emblematic of so many other American cities. During the height of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, Fall River became a booming manufacturing hub. In fact, “Spindle City” was second only to Manchester, England in textile production by the 1870s. Thanks to its strategic location between Boston and New York, Fall River grew in size and prosperity until its population peaked around the 1920s.
The 20th and 21st century were unkind to Fall River, much like Detroit, Michigan, Birmingham, Alabama, and so many other industrial cities across the United States. After World War Two, the American industrial economy collapsed. Millions of manufacturing jobs disappeared in the years that followed as companies moved factories overseas or automated production lines.
As a result, Fall River’s population fell by almost a third, as employment opportunities and prosperity disappeared as well, and In the decades since, Fall River has been challenged by serious economic stagnation. That doesn’t mean the city has taken these changes lying down, though.
Fall River and its inhabitants have hung tough. The city remains proud of what manufacturing has remained, and in recent has reinvested in its waterfront. As Fall River works through decades of hardship, companies like Vanson Leather have served as an important bridge between past, present, and future.
But it’s not just the spirit of New England’s industrious past that drives Vanson Leathers. They’ve also carried on the boney legacy of Aldana’s iconic skeleton apparel since the eighties, while branching out to other parts of popular culture. Vanson, for example, has also become a fixture in hip-hop culture.
Thanks in part to a visible spot in the music video for the song “Only You” by 112 featuring Biggie Smalls, Vanson jackets have been a muse for tastemakers in the hip-hop world. In recent years, Vanson has worked with brands like Supreme to remain a part of street wear’s bleeding edge, while continuing to pay homage to the motorcycle jackets that also serve as a through line for the business.
It’s this background and dedication to history that attracted Brown and 7uice to Vanson, breathing new life into the story.
“Growing up,” Brown told Celtics Wire. “Vanson was known as one of the staple brands that merged both the hip-hop and fashion community, all while operating as a tight-knit production team of expert craftspeople and creatives who still operate those same machines today, right here in Massachusetts.”
New addition to the 7UICE line landed in the Jaylen Brown teammates’ lockers. A collaboration with with Vanson. Friends and family wearing it court side too
Smart made the revving motorcycle motion as Brown walked by him. Hauser joked he won’t be wearing it, but it’s appreciated pic.twitter.com/Nagnv1BpML
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) May 9, 2023
Brown has always been curious about the Bones jacket, and has long known of Vanson’s status in pop culture. That inspired him to reach out a few years ago. In the early days of the partnership between Vanson and 7uice, a version of the jacket served as gifts to NBA rookies as part of Brown’s annual Rookie One Court event in Las Vegas. More recently, he gifted updated versions to his Celtics teammates. Now 7uice and Brown want to offer their version of the Bones Jackets to the public.
That’s where creative director of streetwear at Vanson, Da’Von Bean comes in. While Vanson has been a part of biking, hip-hop, and fashion culture for years, Bean has sought to expand this vision, and working with Brown and 7uice was the perfect opportunity.
“The design process for our collaboration was pretty easy,” Bean explained. “Jaylen and I went back and forth via text with ideas, and everything came into fruition.”
A few months ago, Brown and his team visited Vanson to see how the jackets get made as the ideas for this new project swirled. As an added connection between hip-hop and Vanson, Brown and 7uice brought rapper Millyz, a Cambridge, MA native, down to the factory as well.
“I was mind blown to find out Vanson was based out of Mass,” Millyz told Celtics Wire. “These are some of the best jackets I’ve seen them drop. It’s super dope to see JB stepping into the fashion world in a major way.”
Beyond the history and cultural aspects of the collaboration, centering the people who make the jackets themselves was key for Brown. As Clarke explained, Brown was a major driver every step of the way.
“Jaylen wanted to be ground level on everything for this project,” Clarke said. Design, storytelling, everything.”
It was important to Brown to meet the people who make the jackets. Many of the people employed by the company have been working for decades, and Brown and 7uice wanted to ensure the jackets and the campaign to launch them underlined this work. This extends to the photos and other marketing material for launch of the jackets.
“I love the fact that Jaylen wanted to highlight the real MVPs at Vanson Leather,” Bean said. “The people who are here every day crafting each handmade garment. It gives an inside look at what we do here at Vanson.”
The jackets in question can not be mass-produced. Many of the people working at Vanson have been honing their craft for decade, and in a video produced by 7uice outlining the collaboration, stitcher Sincha Bianchi explained her role alone takes six or seven hours per jacket.
“For this project and this collaboration,” Clarke explained. “We definitely wanted to double down on the importance of craftsmanship and tailoring, and highlight the moving of parts that go into it.”
“We wanted to create a product where people know that somebody is actually behind it,” Clarke continued. “It’s not just a machine, but somebody is carefully putting the stitches together, putting the patterns together. A good personalized stitching on the inside, something that you can feel, you can feel that process.”
“We want everybody to know,” Clarke said. “This is something that these people that you see here during this campaign, they all carefully crafted these jackets over the course of weeks and months.”
“You know,” Clarke continued. “You see one man make the sleeve, then the sleeve gets passed to another person, and on and on. And that speaks to the craftsmanship, and also the teamwork aspect and all the hard work, the unity, the community.”
Clarke explained Brown and 7uice are proud to offer something that is designed to last. It’s extra work on their end, but it’s not an area where they plan on compromising.
“So,” Clarke said with a laugh. “It’ll take some time for each jacket to get made. Luckily we’ve got a few pre-made.”
Brown and 7uice brand have sought to buck the pitfalls of mass consumerism in the past. Brown himself has openly criticized the practices of companies like Nike, for example, and environmental sustainability is an on-going aspiration for 7uice.
“Handmade products like these aren’t really a thing anymore in the fashion world,” Clarke said. “Everything is mass-produced.”
“This is something that you’re going to keep and hand your kids,” Clarke added. “And they’ll hand to their kids. A great leather jacket will always last.”
For Jaylen Brown, this collaboration between 7uice and Vanson is about place. It’s about integrity. The the jackets represent a commitment to something bigger.
Brown’s work to build a Black Wall Street in Boston is ongoing. Likewise, he hasn’t moved away from his work in education in the region. With this new product launch, though, Brown and 7uice are hoping to share their values and vision across different aspects of broader pop culture while connecting with people who feel the same.
“As I continue to grow 7uice, as well as grow with the city of Boston,” Brown said. “I intend to both highlight the region’s unique contributions and contributors to the culture. Here we highlighted our that these two brands share the same love for fashion, energy, and community.”
For fellow creative director for 7uice Malcolm Durr, that connection with the city and region are essential for building mutual respect with the brand’s fans. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Durr told Celtics Wire a big portion of 7uice sales come from New England, and they want to honor that commitment.
“We wanted to show the unity between 7uice and a Mass-based brand like Vanson,” Durr said. “And we wanted that stamp of disruptiveness, too.”
“Hopefully this project will show the next elevation of 7uice,” Durr added. “We want to show up alongside a well-established brand like this and in a uniquely Massachusetts space. It just shows we’re pushing fast and pushing forward.”
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