THE HEADLINES

Fashion Design and Product Launch: Reinventing classic menswear staples through an architectural design lens. 

CLIENT

A Rumblespring Studio project.

INFLUENCES

Ashley Book of Knots, shipbuilding, seafaring cultures, Japanese workwear textiles, flyfishing, origami, architecture, dandies

THE WORK

PRODUCT DESIGN

BRANDING

PHOTOGRAPHY

SOURCING

WEB DESIGN

PROMOTION

THE BRIEF

Magnus Hitch Menswear

Magnus Hitch Menswear is the brainchild of an engineer, an interior designer, a landscape architect, and an architect.  Bringing insight from these analogous fields to fashion design allows the multi-disciplinary team to deconstruct the conventions of classic menswear.

Rumblespring developed concepts, sourced fabrics, identified skilled tailors to pattern complex new architecture, and oversaw production runs.  From a seed of an idea to a product on the shelf.

Brand, online, and packaging concepts were built around the line, all inspired by seafaring cultures and a seminal text – The Ashley Book of Knots. Author Clifford Ashley (an OG Dapper Dan) informed the aesthetic throughout development. The team captured brand images in the studio and staged a guerrilla photoshoot in Harvard Square.

The collection continues to evolve, including curated vintage pieces, found objects, and reclaimed fabric lines.

The Muse

NATURE: Fancy AF.

The aim is to explore the ornate possibilities of decoration for the masculine wardrobe.

We draw inspiration from the extravagant flourishes of male species in the wild. The curated mating displays of the bower bird; the ultraviolet markings of jumping spiders; a lizard’s bulging neon neck flap that allows it to sing love songs and defend its territory.

Fun fact: This appendage, the dewlap, was the inspiration for rethinking the typical two-dimensional canvas of a necktie as three dimensions for our original launch collection.

INITIAL LAUNCH

The Preview Collection

MOODBOARD
THE  PROCESS

Knot even...

Seafaring is in our bones. Years spent shipbuilding in the Hudson introduced one founder to the seminal work: The Ashley Book of Knots. Author Clifford Ashley traveled

While carrying savage cargo in their working years, these retired vessels were oft revisited in our youth. School trips to Mystic Seaport ingrained the smell of the hot embers at blacksmith shop, the deep groves of salt-worn wood, ink rubbed into etched bone. We drew inspiration from the craft and aesthetics of this era's mix of pragmatism and finesse.

The Man / The Legend
The Master Work
The Springboard
BRANDING

Drawing from the Ashley Book of Knots diagram styles, the brand logo incorporates the namesake knot into the company monogram.  A Baskerville-style serif font face conjures up images of classic letterpress typesetter’s workstation.

PACKAGING

The color palette was influenced by antique coastal charts and lithograph maps with their warm pages and washed-out watercolor inks in ocean hues.  Vintage map reproductions line the gift boxes and close with a knot that would do Clifford proud.