Afends

Byron Bay is its own humidicrib of a certain kind of cool. It’s garage, it’s ink, it’s the long hairs of the seventies meets ping-ping Gen text. Ain’t a brand that reflects its geography more than Byron’s Afends. And David Jonsson, head designer there, knows what his people are going to like. Mistreated denim, y’think? Stab: Talk me through the construction process. Where did you make ‘em, how many hands did they go through, how long did it take? David: I’m glad you guys asked this question because there were a few people involved who definitely deserve a lot of credit. “Designers” get a little bit too much sometimes. The idea was brainstormed with the creative and marketing team here (Sam, Beckie, Heath and Mike). Once we knew what we were doing, the idea got handed to our garment tech-wizard, Mike Fishwick. The entire process was completed from start to finish in our little warehouse in Byron Bay. He made the pattern in-house based off our new line of trunk which we plan to drop soon. In true Mike fashion he poured himself a Maker’s Mark and literally hand-made, stitched, sandpapered and distressed our shorts til the early morning, minutes before our delivery deadline. And, for the poor devils who ain’t going to touch these find thangs, talk me through all the cool lil things about ‘em… To start with, these aren’t your average trunks. They started their life as denim jackets from our Afends women’s range. The jackets literally got butchered in the process as our goal was to use as much of their elements as possible to create our final trunk design. Mike was a guru on the machine! The main body sections became the leg designs including an embossed ying-yang on the right thigh. We took the side-hand pockets which became the back pocket of the shorts, a chest pocket to add in a little cargo pocket on the side, the size-adjusters on the back of the jacket were used for the waist ties. The final detailing included the trimmings of our “Shallow Graves” patch and our brown leather denim patch on the back detailing.