Brisbane brothers Sam and Jono Cottee have landed an amazing fashion coup for their street wear label Vanguard after inking a deal with iconic American retail powerhouse Bloomingdale’s. Kudos.
First launching in 2005, the boys’ vision for Vanguard has never wavered from their original ambition: to create accessible, wearable and functional clothes for themselves and other like-minded dudes. The deal with Bloomingdale’s was the result of the label being selected to show at G’Day USA, New York Australia Week Celebrations in January of this year, and American retailers responded enthusiastically to the quintessentially Australian, laidback vibe the brand is all about.
Having their clothes hanging on Bloomingdale’s racks is a long way from Nanna’s garage where the Cottee brothers first started screen printing their designs on t-shirts. Older brother Jono (28) told Pedestrian about first hearing the news that the massive department store wanted in: “We were actually over at Straddie shooting our new lookbook when we got the news from our agent. Needless to say things loosened up considerably after the shoot and at the end of the day we took the photo crew to the Straddie pub to celebrate properly.”
He said, “When we first took the plunge into doing Vanguard we were just stoked to see someone out wearing our gear. To be stocked in Bloomingdale’s is a world away from where we were back then.”
In addition to Bloomie’s, Vanguard’s SS 2010-11 collection entitled ‘Good Morning: Rucksack Wanderers’ was picked up by several other US stockists including Life: Curated in Brooklyn; Shoe Gallery in Miami; and Los Angeles boutiques Honey Co and Brick and Mortar. The collection is inspired by coastal road trips, summer rooftop parties and the theme ‘cash poor, life rich’ – with the price tag to match.
Vanguard is stocked in 60 stores throughout Australia, New Zealand, UK and Japan and have recently launched an online store.
