The heritage boom has led to a mini-backlash of sorts; it’s become harder for brands to hop onto the bandwagon without intense scrutiny. While newcomers may undergo a harder ride because of this, it’ll only help brands like Garbstore.

Helmed by Ian Paley, Garbstore is a store/clothing line which, in Paley’s own words during a Style Salvage interview, means ”clothing shop’. ‘I like the use of the word garb because like so many other things these days , it’s use is dying out’.

Prior to Garbstore Paley worked at Paul Smith, where he was the designer of their casual wear. He then launched Paul Smith sub-brand R.Newbold, a Japan-only offshoot that can now can be found in London. He stated in an interview with Hypebeast that this experience was ‘my real introduction to the craft of making good jeans and weaving great denim’. Stints at Burberry, advertising and launching his own line One True Saxon followed before he eventually launched Garbstore.

The clothing line and store were launched in conjunction, focusing on heritage based products and Japanese made US-influenced clothing. In an interview with Hypebeast, Paley said that ‘the best American stuff is re-made and improved by the Japanese because of the superior construction techniques and buoyant domestic textile industry’.

An oft-overlooked topic in the blogosphere’s love of all things Japanese is the sizing issue. Japanese frames are typically slimmer and their clothes are remade for that frame. Paley recognised this, saying that ‘it’s something we addressed right from the start with all of our Japanese brands. As long as you know how to change things then it’s really not too hard’.

While local manufacture has turned into a buzz topic amongst a niche crowd, Garbstore have bucked the trend by proudly stating their clothes are made in China, producing features on their site stating why they do so. ‘it’s a real trend to try and in-still ‘heritage’ into your product,’ He states. ‘It’s really appearing to be fake now. So boring. We just love our manufacturers, and are happy to share in their own successes’.

Whether it’s doing it like Acne and mixing film amongst their clothing or being like Kitsune and running a record label, some brands function better as part of a creative collective. With their fingers in music, art and film, Uniforms for the Dedicated are the latest example of a collective fulfilling their potential.

The collective itself started around 2004, with the Swedish team originally meeting in the USA. One of the founders, Fredrik Wilholm states that ‘We actually got to know each other living together in Colorado snowboarding, basically starting out as a travelling collective’. It wasn’t until 2008 that the clothing collection started, with the video and art sides not starting until early 2009.

The clothes themselves are influenced by historic reference points and given tweaks and twists to bring them in line with the rest of their collection. Using family owned factories in Turkey and China, they focus on fabrics that can achieve the look they strive for. “Materials, whatever we find, like and can afford, mohair, wool, leather, cotton twills, synthetics, a lot of canvas. We spend a lot of time on washes that looks Uniforms – they might not be the most crazy expensive raw material but we work and treat it to get the right look and hand feel.”

When it comes to the oft-stressed topic of prestige not being enough to warrant a high price anynore Fredrik states, “We believe that everybody need to question their brand existence, what´s unique in your product and what the customer actually gets in relation to what she/he pays for. Recession or not I think we live in a time when consumers in general have the confidence and knowledge to create a subjective opinion about the product living up to the price or not.”

There’s never been a more harmonious time in the relationship between streetwear and traditional menswear. Streetwear aficionados are wearing oxford shirts, menswear fanatics are wearing backpacks and everyone is wearing the simple under-designed sneaker. Gourmet are a brand who’ve risen to the top in this sector of fashion.

Started by three friends, Gourmet originally started out as a clothing company. “The [story] behind the clothing company was three Italians from the East Coast coming together to start a clothing brand, but the key ingredient to the recipe was that we were going to make all the clothing in Italy”, stated Jon Buscemi. This changed when they found that the market wasn’t quite ready for the products they’d made. “Making $400 sweatpants and $1200 sweatshirts just didn’t make sense where the market was going”.

It was only then that the company started introducing footwear into the collection, eventually morphing into a fully fledged footwear label. Gourmet are a company who wear their influences on their sleeves - sometimes to their own detriment. “Obviously Gourmet is influenced by Nike, they were doing all this first.” Jon stated in an interview with BNTL.co.uk that “When we did that Jordan flip shoe they dropped a federal lawsuit on us.”

That blip aside, the company still make shoes based on classics. For instance, their duck boot is clearly influenced by LL Bean’s version, but Gourmet’s versions is a re-interpretation as opposed to a rehash. Fabric-wise, the company uses the same leather as Louis Vuitton, making their shoes in Italy. But whilst the quality is top notch, the design is their calling card. They make clean trainers that straddle the fine line between under and over design. As Jon puts it, ‘There’s no floating space shoes here. It’s all easily digestible classic design.’

While any shift in menswear brings a host of imitators, they’ll always be brands who rise to the top by the sheer quality and authenticity of their clothing, regardless of whether they’re part of any current trend. Knitwear company Arne & Carlos are one such company.

The Norwegian company, named after their owners Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison, started out as a womenswear collection in 2002. “It turned out that we were getting the best feedback on our knitwear”, states co-owner Carlos Zachrison. So after a few seasons focusing on knitwear, the label focused solely on knitwear, also opening up a men’s collection at the same time.

They showed their Autumn/Winter 2008 menswear collection in Paris, which then garnered a host of attention of the sort of high end stores you now see them in today - the likes of Liberty and Dover Street Market. The latter stockist also lead to a high profile collaboration with Comme Des Garcons, which solidified their standing as a high quality knitwear maker.

The main standout point of Arne & Carlos is the quality of their patterns. To put it bluntly, every piece features a pattern that could easily go wrong if left in the wrong hands. Heritage has become a misused buzzword lately, but it does explain why Arne & Carlos are so skilled at making patterned knitwear.

“We work with original knitwear patterns that have been part of the Scandinavian culture for centuries”, explains Carlos. “It’s part of our heritage, but we try to re-work them and make pieces that are fresh and modern. The materials we use are softer and much lighter, unlike the original Norwegian wool, which is heavy, thick and scratchy.  I think it’s a combination of cultural heritage, modern cuts and lighter/softer materials that make these pieces timeless, but still up-to-date.”

Shifts in menswear have the tendency to revamp certain fabrics. Chambray was long seen as the ugly duckling of fabrics until the current heritage boom brought around its resurgence. Typically used on shirting, designers have been coming up with ever more inventive ways of using the fabric. While creativity in itself is great to marvel at, we much prefer when it’s mixed with functionality. One perfect mixture of the two is accessories label, The Hill-Side.

The U.S brand was given a small scale launch back in Autumn of 2008. ‘We started The Hill-Side gradually, making one-off pieces from deadstock and found fabrics’ states Emil Corsillo, one half of the brother duo that makes up the label. After attracting more customers, the Corsillo brothers eventually launched their first full collection for the autumn/winter 2009 season. Originally focusing solely on ties and handkerchiefs, later collections saw them expand into scarves and other accessories, all lined with their signature selvedge stripe - something Emil once called a ‘honest decoration’.

As you’d expect for a company focusing on accessories that live or die based on the fabric, it’s where the legwork is put in. A typical collection might feature upwards of 23 different fabrics and they work with over 30 at first, whittling it down to the right number and ensuring that only the best fabrics are chosen.

‘Our products focus on utilitarian fabrics not commonly found in neckwear, including selvedge chambray, hemp/cotton blend selvedge denim, left-hand twill, organic “colorgrown” cotton, and waxed canvas’. The fabrics themselves are sourced mainly from Japan. ‘[There's a] great mill in Kojima where the best denim in the world is lovingly produced with an artisanal attention to detail and craft’.

The Hill-Side, along with a slew of other brands, have captured an emerging customer - one who values quality over the myth of a ‘bargain’. “Inexpensive products are not necessarily selling better during the recession; the products that are really succeeding are the ones that do the best job of communicating to a customer how their value is aligned with their price tag.”

The heritage boom has led several brands down a difficult path. Do they reproduce things they made previously or remake them with the modern customer in mind? Companies who chose the latter have fared better. Most consumers like the idea of heritage (hard wearing, durable clothing) over the reality (hard wearing, ill fitting clothing). One of the best companies at understanding this subtle difference is Gitman Vintage.

Based in Ashland, Pennsylvania since 1948, Gitman Brothers was originally named the Ashland Shirt Corporation. It wasn’t until 1978, when Max Gitman’s sons took over, that it became Gitman Brothers. This is also the reason why you’ll see mags and blogs refer to Gitman as having started in the 70’s, despite having actually been originated in the 40’s.

The companies had been making shirts for designers quietly for a number of years, but their popularity underwent a massive spike when word slipped out that Thom Browne made his shirts there. Their entire operation is still made in the US - no mean feat at a time when even APC’s Jean Touitou denounced US manufacture as ‘only theoretical’. Aside from their manufacturing methods, what makes Gitman vintage stand out is their focus on updating, rather than replicating, their heritage.

Gitman Vintage is headed by Chris Olberding, their one man machine who’s solely responsible for all aspects of the spin off brand. Each season Olberding chooses an archive year and chooses a set amount of fabrics from that particular year. For example, spring/summer 2010 uses fabrics from 1984. The cuts are changed for a contemporary feel, which means that the body is slimmed and the armholes raised to keep in line with today’s trimmed fit.

Evoking the feel of the old has been Gitman Vintage’s greatest success and, unsurprisingly, it’s what Olberding loves most about his role. “[I like] seeing how the old fits in with the new. After all, what is the new but the good forgotten old.”