BEHIND BENTGABLENITS: Or how we collaborated with a one-of-a-kind, hand-embellished vintage upcycler (again).

Style / Collaborations /
December 2021

The Toronto-based trio known as Bentgablenits are experts in unique vintage pieces with wow-worthy handcrafted embellishments. So partnering with us for yet another exclusive collaboration felt like a natural choice. Although we’re thinking some prime vintage 501®s in need of some customization didn’t hurt our case. For the brand’s second exclusive collaboration with Levi’s® we sat down with Bentgablenits founders: designer Brenda Bent and sourcer Angelo Nitsopolous (the “bent” and “nits” of the company name). We talked all things collaboration, from the power of vintage to how the trio uses different skill sets to create some custom magic. Read the full interview below.

Note: The interview has been edited for clarity and consistency.

Tell us about the second collaboration, why did you decide to come back and collaborate again and how is it different from the first?

BRENDA: The first one was such a success and there were a lot of people left wanting. We did a very small quantity and we weren’t sure it was going to work. When Levi’s® came back to us the thought was let’s not reinvent the wheel here you sold all 27 pairs of jeans [last time] so let’s keep it in the [same] vein. Obviously, the second time around you want to have it be different just so visually it looks more exciting. But I think that it’s almost “chapter two” as opposed to a totally different collab. That really is what it was because we were looking another way initially and veering off in a completely different direction and then it was you guys at Levi’s® who wisely said let’s go back and do this again in a little bit of a different way so it’s fun for all of us. And it is different enough but it wasn’t a complete departure.

What can we expect from the pieces? Where did you source the elements?

BRENDA: Everything was vintage and we sourced it mainly from old handmade tablecloths and table runners that we were able to cut apart. We hand-dyed them ourselves and then we added the embroidery elements to the garments. It’s all probably from 1920-1950, I would say, or the findings that we’ve adorned the garments with are from then.

Which vintage Levi’s® pieces did you choose? How is it the same as/different than the last collaboration?

BRENDA: It’s the same jean as the first collaboration–indigo 501®s. Of course, every vintage jean is again different just like us, but in terms of 501®s Bentgablenits themselves are also releasing a black version which will only be available on the Bentgablenits website, so obviously, there’s a different colorway involved in that as well. We were able to differentiate it a bit more by hand-dyeing every pair so as to keep this monochromatic kind of scheme.

Black vintage denim is really hard to find, what inspired you to look for that this time around?

BRENDA: I personally didn’t know the black was that hard to find. I mean, I know it doesn’t go back as far, but I never really thought about it. So when Levi’s® came back and said this is the most we can find, we were kind of like well that’s not very many. But you know, you work with what you can get.

ANGELO: I don’t think we knew the exclusivity of how hard it is to get black. I just went in thinking, you know the second time around everyone loves blue jeans, but–me being a consumer of this industry –we always like when a brand or a designer does an exclusive because it’s something different from what everyone else is buying or wearing. So that was my mentality in doing the black.

Tell us about the details.

BRENDA: Yeah. There’s a lot of hand embroidery around the vintage hand-dyed flowers so that it doesn’t look like we blobbed it on. You know we always try to create this flow and coherency and we felt we could only really achieve that by adding these touches of embroidery in. You really need someone who is much more adept at it.

Why did you want to collaborate with Levi’s®?

BRENDA: Well from an older person’s perspective it’s kind of like is there really anything else but Levi’s® but Ang, I think you can speak to it more from our consumer perspective than I can.

ANGELO: We always thought about doing embroidered denim and in theory, yeah, we could just get denim and start embroidering on them. But we all know who the strongest denim brand in the world is, so when you take the strongest designers who embroider and the strongest denim company merging, I think that’s a cool thing so that was kind of the idea.

What is it about our vintage product that makes you want to work with it?

ANGELO: The 501® is the most classic jean ever put out to the market and I mean just the way it fits it kind of suits everyone to be honest.

BRENDA: Everybody wants a 501®. You know whether it’s a girl or a guy, it looks good. It’s just a kind of a very neutral but cool I guess and that’s kind of a modern concept even though it’s vintage.You guys have a legacy and we appreciate using older things and giving them another life. And really [our final product] is made by hand, and who makes anything by hand anymore. For us, that’s the honoring of that aspect I guess.

Why vintage pieces? What’s the significance behind using only deadstock and pre-loved styles?

BRENDA: For me, there’s just such a surplus of great vintage stuff why reinvent the wheel? Why not work on that? Like today my partner Karen and I were doing a different collab and we pulled out some old vintage fur coat fastenings and I said to her “I’ve had these for 35 years” and it was like a big stack of them. And she goes “that’s amazing, now you get to use them!” So it’s that appreciation that we bring to it and then Ang kind of brings something else to it, too. He’s the modernist. For us, that’s the interesting part of it is we force ourselves to work outside of something that is our immediate comfort zone and I think that often produces really cool results.

ANGELO: And like 99.9% of the time it is vintage we use unless it’s like super hard to find a niche garment but a lot of the time you can find anything vintage. I mean that’s the whole reason we started BGN is to upcycle everything we do.

Tell us more about what drew you to vintage. Is it the look, the eco-friendly aspect, or both?

BRENDA: I think the look is a big part. I’d love to say that we’re all super environmentalists–but no. Initially, we just liked old stuff so we liked the way that it’s worn-in, from a t-shirt with holes to an older pair of jeans. So there’s an interesting element of that incorporating the future into the past and the good part of the past is the quality of the workmanship that perhaps doesn’t exist anymore.

ANGELO: And in doing all that, you’re also really helping the environment, so it’s a double-edged sword. You really are doing both at the end of the day.

How do you blend your different skills to work together?

BRENDA: We complement each other. You know Ang is always on the hunt to find something that I don’t really even know what it is. And I’m on the hunt to find like–I collect this old Turkish stuff that no one even makes anymore. They literally make it with tiny, tiny needles like you can’t even imagine how long it takes. Like who even does that any more? So we’re always on the hunt for kind of different things and chemistry comes together in many many ways. We have this alchemy that I think is really unusual.

What do you feel people don’t know about your work? What do you wish they knew?

ANGELO: Yeah and I don’t think people even really understand how hard it is–and yeah people look at our piece and think “wow that’s really cool”–but I don’t think they really understand where it comes from, or how long it took to source, or “do they even make this anymore,” or anything like that. People don’t really understand how hard it is to find that stuff so people tend to overlook it a lot of the time. But if you did understand, you’d be like “wow that’s crazy.”

BRENDA: We have these stickers we stick on our stuff sometimes with one of my favorite sayings which is “you probably could have made this, but you didn’t”. You know someone might say they could paint a Jackson Pollock and it’s like “ok, go ahead.” You know what I mean? I’m not comparing ourselves to Jackson Pollock, but it is that flippancy of “I could do it”. Well sit down and show me one.

The limited-edition, one-of-a-kind, hand-embellished Levi’s® x Bentgablenits collection is available exclusively on the Levi’s® app and on bentgablenits.com, with the black styles only available on the Bentgablenits site. Snag your multihyphenate style now, before it’s gone forever.