Even if you don’t know Aaron Levine by name, your closet is a testament to his influence. Levine is one of our era’s great turnaround whizzes; for a certain type of menswear enthusiast his scruffy salt-and-pepper beard is just as recognizable as his deft styling.
He’s the guy who guided Club Monaco through its best seasons, helped Abercrombie shake the last vestiges of its horny reputation, and, most recently, turned Madewell into a linchpin of the mall-brand renaissance. So when we heard our favorite hirsute menswear whisperer had another top-secret project in the works, we had a feeling it’d be a doozy—and earlier this week, Levine made good on the promise.
Trumbull is a new line of beefy fleece basics designed by Levine and produced in conjunction with Huckberry, the outdoorsy e-comm juggernaut. Introducing an assortment of basics just as menswear readies itself for a historic return to elegance might seem a little, well, basic—but from the jump, Levine and the Huckberry team are primed to stick the landing.
Trumbull is chock-full of best-in-class bodega-run upgrades, done up in right-now silhouettes and primo fabrics. The tees are boxy and cropped, the sweatpants are baggy and reinforced with an exterior layer of cotton, and all of it—from the hoodies to the quarter-zips—is handmade in Detroit from 100% US-grown cotton that’s been pigment-dyed and garment-washed for a lived-in feel.
If that sounds like a recipe for the type of weathered hoodie your grandkids will fish out of a closet decades from now, you already understand the appeal; Levine was thinking along the same lines. Trumbull borrows freely from the old-school gems vintage lovers drool over at the bins, retains the small details and dialed proportions, but nixes the stains and odors in favor of a palette of neutral, goes-with-everything hues.
That degree of attention doesn’t come cheap, exactly—sweatpants will run you around $140, tees $58—but with Levine’s track record, you can bet that’s going to be money well spent. And the look on your grandkid’s face when you finally bequeath it to him? Priceless.
