Cashmere will always be the raison d être of The Elder Statesman, but for Spring, Greg Chait found a new fiber to call his own: denim. The new collection had the usual Statesman offering of great hand-painted and -dyed cashmere sweaters, in striped, blocked, and baja versions; dyed scarves; and plaid shirts and shirtdresses in tissue-thin pashmina—one sleeveless, for the redneck who won t compromise on quality. But here, too, was embroidered denim sourced from the hills and dales of Guatemala. On a recent trip to the country, Chait became enamored of the traditional embroidered skirts Guatemalan women wear and, a bit of market haggling later, found a supplier. He s cutting the cloth into rainbow-striped jeans in cigarette and boyfriend styles, shorts, overall rompers, and even a body-sized denim duffel. That bag comes with a patch of the California Republic flag—one hand-beaded by craftspeople of the Masai. Why do cheaply and easily what you can do laboriously and expensively?
There, in a sentence, is the Elder Statesman s core creed. And if you re comfortable with the basic premise of luxury products—i.e., that a sweater may be worth the price of a visit to the Masai—then touching is believing. (Chait himself is such a charming evangelist that a walk-through with him may be enough to win over any doubters.) Though the line bowed out of an official presentation this weekend, Chait has larger goals in mind: the movement of production from New York to his home base, L.A., where he recently opened his own factory, and the eventual debut of a Beverly Hills store. In the meantime, the introduction of denim, priced in line with the cost of most designer jeans, happily enough offers a foothold entry point to the Elder Statesman world for those who may not have a separate annual budget for cashmere. (The un-dyed Kenyan cotton pieces may help, too.) And for those who do have the means, Chait s most lavish cashmere pieces still have their faintly numinous appeal. They pull off the feat of being holy without being pious—right in line with the bearded, Birkenstocked, music-fest styling. It suggests the new best way to tell a hippie from a trust-fund hippie: Just nuzzle his sweater.
