Keith Henry is a clothing designer and manufacturer who has been fascinated with jeans since he got his first pair of Chad Muska jeans. From there he evolved with the styles, learning how to taper his own skinny jeans before becoming fascinated with workwear and textiles. Today he owns and operates Henry’s. 

Keith creates some of the most unique silhouettes in pants, and his jeans are no exception. With workwear, function and the value of a worn down jean in mind Keith and I met over zoom to talk about his inspirations, function and the beauty of patina.

The photos included are courtesy of Keith and show the before and after of well loved jeans, specifically Henry’s.

Caleb: You kind of touched on it, but you're really interested in these Chad Muska jeans and how they changed and shifted. Why do you think that has a lasting appeal? Why do people look for jeans with a patina?


Keith: Well, I think there's something to be said about things that take a long time.


Denim being one of them, that's why people sell pre distressed jeans, which I've never liked. I've bought some, a few pairs in my time, but they've never felt right. They don't seem right. The only stuff that I would consider buying is a stonewash, which is essentially just like an enzyme wash with pumice stones and it breaks down, but all jeans start in the raw state. So why would you not start with just a blank canvas and work from there?

If you think about any other fabrics, say you have a melton wool and you're riding your bike or your skateboard and you get a little hole in it or you get a little discoloration, you're going to be bummed.


I would say, you'd be bummed. It's like, oh, that's a nice pant. You don't want to ruin it. That kind of thing. But with denim, you eat shit, you fall, you scrape it on something, you get a little paint on it. It just adds to the character of it. I can't really describe why. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it has that natural or white weft underneath.


So it kind of. It changes over time, drastically in that regard. It is just a very honest fabric. If you put your wallet in your back pocket, it's just going to shape to the wallet. It's going to fade to the wallet, that kind of thing. I can't really describe what the appeal is to it. But there's something about it.





I just like to see changes in things. And I think it's a very human approach because people change over the years. You know what I mean? Daily changes as well. You get a five o'clock shadow if you have facial hair, that kind of thing. I just think it's cool to see change in that regard.


It's a nice fabric to spend a lot of time with.


I have another jean jacket as well, where the person was shorter in the arms so they flipped up the cuff. That created really interesting wear patterns and fades that don’t show when the cuff is left down. 

It just has different characteristics like that, which I think is cool. You can kind of see the style of how people wear it, for vintage stuff especially. As far as your own thing, it just like, it just accentuates your legs, it accentuates your things and your features.


Every jean is going to be different. If you wear it, it's not going to look the same as if I wear it.


Yeah. I think it's really interesting. If you've been around it enough, you can pretty quickly tell when it's fake and when it's authentic, right?


Right off the bat, there are people that do a good job, in a sense, but it's only a good job from far away.


And then once you get closer, you're like, ‘oh yeah, that's fake.’ It's a fake thing, which is fine. But it's just not really my thing. But people desire that faded in [and] that broken in look, you know what I mean? So it's like buying a vintage leather couch instead of a new one.


Like, ‘oh, how do I get it to look like tumble leather, that cool grain or whatever.’ You have to just wear these things. You have to, you know, live life with them.


So would you say that the actual work you do, the function of your pants informs more of your designs, or is it mostly looking back into research on other designs?


There's the functionality of it, for sure. I mean, at the end of the day, what are pockets for? They’re to hold your things. So if a pocket's not big enough, I mean, you have to adapt new things. Everyone makes jeans the same way that they used to back in the thirties, if you really think about it. So for me, I like deep pocket bags. I don't like to lose my things. So I like to have a very deep pocket bag, a very substantial pocket bag where it's very soft on the hand. It's not going to tear and rip through, and you're not going to lose your keys. You know, if you buy Levi's, a mass production Levi's, it's just kind of shitty.


Almost see-through, like see-through cloth.


It's the first thing to rip.


Literally that. Yeah. So I was like, what would I want to change about the garments that I'm buying? And those are the first things. So it’s a deep pocket and also has to be pleasing to put your hand in. I have a big hand, not long, but it's just kind of fat and chunky. So putting my hand in a jean pocket, it's kind of a struggle sometimes. So I wanted to make that an easier thing. So make the opening a different shape. And then I would just take iterations of pockets that exist and tweak them in my own ways that I saw fit.


If you're familiar with the swoop carpenter jean, I did that initially. It was based off of a pocket that I designed from memory, it wasn't an actual direct reference, but it was a Ben Davis pocket, which is essentially just a frogmouth pocket. Which is a classic tailoring thing. But in my head, I was like, ‘Oh, I think it went like this.’ And then just kind of drew it with my finger, put it on paper and [said], ‘What if I took that and flipped it, that'd be pretty pleasing to put your hand in.’


We had a couple of pairs and were like, okay, I really like it. And that was the swoop pocket. And then I was like, how do I make a carpenter pant in that same realm and the way that comes across and sweeps up. What if instead of going across, I would just sweep it down, sweep it up.


My designs are mainly informed I guess you could say by taking what you know as a standard thing and tweaking it a little bit. So, like I said, making the pocket bags really deep, making the openings a different shape or more pleasing for your hands or just something interesting. That's pretty much it.


And it has to be like a quality thing. I generally tend to work with heavier fabrics, just cause it's what I prefer. I bike everywhere.


If this stuff is going to be thin, if your pants are going to be grabbing at your legs and just all weird and crazy feeling- I'm just not a big fan of it. I like pants with structure and denim is good to wear everyday. Cause then it fades and it gets all that beautiful look, et cetera, et cetera.


I think it's cool that your designs are not only driven by what's functional, but also what's comfortable and also just intuition. Right? So it seems like a lot of your designs are based on vintage, but then you ask, what would be the best version of this? And you just feel it, which is really cool. Because you don't [see that], there's not that much intentionality in a lot of jeans.


I don't necessarily want to be targeted as the denim brand. But I think that denim is an important fabric that a lot of people don't want to touch because they think, ‘oh, we don't want to make jeans’, but it's like, well, you can make pants out of denim that are not jeans.


If that makes sense. You can make it kind of whatever you want, but a lot of people don't want to touch that. And it's also tough for a lot of people who are producing in factories because the factory will have  set ways like. ‘We have our own jean pattern. We stick with this’, that kind of thing. Your jean pattern should align with our jean pattern. Because we have a certain way that we produce stuff.


With me, because I make everything myself, it's just a free for all. I can throw everything out the window and [say], ‘whatever works I'll do that.’ That seems crazy. That's kind of annoying, but it's just me doing it.


[I] have the freedom to design and tweak things. I fail, I make stuff and I'm like, oh, I don't really like that too much. What would I change about it? And sometimes it takes a while, even years to realize, ‘oh, I don't really like what I did there’. But you need to make it for yourself and actually wear it and wear it a lot and see what the failing points are and what the benefits of it are.

Photo by Pat O’Rourke

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