SWEDE AND LOW

Cheap Monday brings skinny jeans & skinny prices to a brand new US store.

They say it’s tough times, but tomorrow, a brand new store will be open for business: the first freestanding Inven.Tory shop in America, on the corner of Lafayette and Prince St. in New York City. 

Celebrating its arrival with a slew of limited-edition apparel, the store should be a hub for denim addicts all over, especially as they kick off the Inven.tory grand opening with 50 pairs of customized jeans by Cheap Monday.   We sat down with Cheap Monday's Carl Malmgren for a little chat…

How long does it take you to make a new jean, like the limited edition patch pants you're selling in New York?
Not as long as you'd think, because we actually do everything ourselves.  We have a room in our office where everything is covered in plastic, like even the bookshelves, and we have sandpaper, razor blades, paint… we just start playing until we get something right, we just go at it.

That room should have a special name.
That’s a good idea.  We don’t yet, but I guess we should call it The Lab, shouldn’t we?  We do all kinds of things in there; right now I’m trying different waxing techniques and different washes.

So when you were a baby, would you only wear denim?
I think so!  My mom says when I was three or four, and it was time to go to school, I was always late because I had to roll up my jeans and I had to have them perfect.  That’s where it started; nobody in my family is into fashion, and there I am, like, three years old, and trying to make my jeans have this perfect roll instead of a cuff.  That was so ‘80s.

Did you go to fashion school?
No I was in bands; I went to school for music.  But I needed a job, and so I started working in the first Cheap Monday store, before it was even called Cheap Monday.  I started in 2002 and I was there for two years.  The store was called Weekend because that’s the only time it was open, I mean, we all had other jobs during the week.  And it was in the middle of nowhere, but people would drive from everywhere just to get the jeans.  We knew we were onto a good thing then.

My dad makes fun of my jeans sometimes.  Do you get, like, old grandfathers in Sweden asking about your pants?
Yeah, every day!  I tell them it’s rock ‘n roll and they’ll never understand.  But I still remember, when I was in a band and I went to Germany in my first pair of Cheap Monday jeans.  We were in Berlin and they were like, mocking us!  The crowd heckled us and said we were wearing frog pants!  And now, everyone in Berlin is a frog I guess.

Is there a way people wear Cheap Mondays that you didn't expect?
It’s cool to see the hip hop kids in the suburbs getting into it; I like it that they’re making it into their own thing.

Tell me if this is sacrilege, but when can we move on from skinnies?
I mean, I can see it coming because I start with myself, and I like my jeans looser and riding higher on my body now.  But denim trends are so strong, they last for like ten years.  So the skinny pant isn’t going anywhere for a long time.  I mean, remember boot cut?  Remember how that lasted for almost fifteen years? 

Is there a new trend that you think could stick?
In Sweden, girls wear paper bag waists now.  So I think that will go around to the rest of the world. 

Nobody in our office can identify Swedish food.  Help.
Not meatballs!  It’s more, anything with pork and milk and heavy cream.  The food is very heavy, but it’s very cold in Sweden so I guess you need it.  But it’s hard for me because I’m a vegetarian so I guess it’s just a lot of potatoes?
--FARAN KRENTCIL

cheapmonday.com



This story was published on March 16, 2009.