Barbell Denim
No matter what your shape and size, shopping for jeans is right up there on the scale of miserable shopping outings with bathing suit shopping. When you find a pair, it’s like the angels are singing “Ave Maria” from the high heavens and you’ve found your one true pair. If you are lucky enough to find your holy grail denim, we recommend stocking up, because inevitably, something changes, a style gets discontinued, or worse yet, you wear out your beloved blues. Recently, denim has been shrinking. No, not because of careless laundry habits, but because styles are getting slimmer and tighter, giving athletic bodies fewer and fewer choices when it comes to denim. Hunter Molzen, Co-founder of Las Vegas-based Barbell Denim, saw the necessity for a more generous cut for guys and girls with athletic bodies, so he started a Kickstarter campaign to get premium denim out on the market that would fit more than just rail-thin hipsters.
Barbell Denim
“These are the anti-thigh gap jeans,” Molzen said to ABC News. “Athletes work hard for their strong, meaty thighs and they should be proud of them. It’s how human beings were built to function.”
Blame it on the rise in Crossfit attendance or the loyal following that spin classes such as Flywheel and SoulCycle have amassed, because Barbell Denim’s Kickstarter campaign surpassed its goal of raising $15,000 and ended up with over $735,000 of funding at the end of its campaign.
Molzen, along with a team of weight lifters, snowboarders and rock climbers worked to design the jeans so that they’d blend function and fashion. Using measurements from friends, family and more, they designed the fit of the jeans — the brand is starting with just one fit for men and one for women, but plans on expanding the range — to accommodate more athletic builds.
Barbell Denim
The jeans, which will retail for $149, are fitted, but aren’t as tight as a jegging, but they’re also not baggy. Instead, the goal was to hit the sweet spot of being fitted without looking too skinny. Comfort comes courtesy of a touch of spandex, which lets you move while you’re in your jeans without that painful break-in period that denimheads and serious selvedge fans know all too well. The jeans also take into account athlete’s waist and thigh ratio which is often a problem in most of the offerings on the market. Athletes and gym-goers often have small waists in comparison to their thighs, so they’re usually stuck buying a bigger size. Like other premium denim lines, Barbell Denim uses hand finishing to give jeans a lived-in look, premium brass buttons, genuine leather labels and more.
Contributors to Barbell’s Kickstarter campaign can expect their jeans in July and the brand will offer its jeans to the masses shortly after.
For more information, visit www.barbellapparel.com.
Images courtesy Barbell Apparel
