Denim Defender Diary Pt1 - Beach Break Live

11pm - its dark and the drive from London to Pembry country park Wales had taken its toll, the sheer volume of festival necessities pouring out of the Land Rover was already putting a strain on the cabin. Too late now, we just have to press on to the park and ride. 

Eventually we reach the mammoth queue, along the way discarding various heavy objects we no longer needed. Boredom struck as soon as we hit the thousand-deep people wall. Praise be to Red Bull who saved the day, pulling up alongside the knackered crowd with an events vehicle kitted out with DJ decks and a ludicrously loud sound system. Inject a few Pepe Jeans beach balls into the crowd and the party is started.

2am - Finally the park and ride bus pulled into the camping ground, our torments are over.

3am - Finding a spot to camp is harder than we thought, eventually after grappling with weird tenting technology in a pitch black field we settle down for our first night's sleep in the Beach Break world. Buzzing just thinking about the awesome festival ahead of us.

Every act was great. Beardy Man, Dan Le Sac vs Scrubious Pip, The Correspondents and Chase and Status, pictured above with headliner Vampire Weekend, were a few of our favourites. 

Everyday was full-on and packed with things to do, the Beach Break tribe (some of whom are pictured above and below with the season's must-have Pepe Jeans beach-ball), were friendly and the festival food was yummy. The only let-down were the relentless queues, but it's a minor gripe given what was an incredible few days.

 The vibe on the last day was electric but do remember to pack a ridiculous fancy dress costume if you come next year. A definite recommendation from the Denim Defender team.

P.S Thanks Red Bull for the great VIP party, with Example providing a heart-pounding set. 

Defending denim, Pepe style

As you can imagine there was plenty of excitement a few weeks ago at Pepe HQ in London's Notting Hill when our gorgeous Denim Defender finally arrived.

We'd been waiting for months for the Land Rover team to kit out the all terrain vehicle and now it's on the road, spanning the length and breadth of the country spreading the Pepe gospel at a roll-call of summer events.

The Denim Defender premise is fiendishly simple. With Pepe people Bradley (pictured left) and Georgina (pictured right) in the cockpit we're visiting campuses and cities, beaches and festivals, helping to get the party started with Pepe giveaways and a myriad of Pepe parties. There are discount vouchers for the faithful and sample sales for the as-yet uninitiated.

We'll be covering each leg of the Denim Defender tour here on the blog as well as on our Twitter and Facebook sites.

Pictured from top you can see Ana from the Pepe team posing alongside the Denim Defender, and retail supremo Jo taking a closer inspection at the upholstery with all-round Pepe whizzkid Ollie.

Red Bull's Mark Weber shakes off crash with win at Silverstone

The Pepe Jeans sponsored Red Bull F1 car streaked to victory on its British home turf on Sunday. Aussie driver Mark Webber proved his mettle after a horrific crash in the last leg of the season which many critics claimed would shatter Webber's track confidence.
In a two-finger salute to his detractors Webber pulled off a faultless display in front of a crowd of 115,000. After narrowly missing another collision with team-mate Sebastien Vettel in the first corner Webber went on to take his fifth podium of the season. Come on Red Bull!

Pepe Jeans Vs Suzuki

London's Clothes Show Live exhibition provided the springboard for Pepe Jeans' collaboration with Suzuki.

It was at the show in Earls Court that one lucky visitor walked away with the keys to this super-cute Pepe Jeans Suzuki Alto. With an interior decked out in hard-wearing 14oz denim and a crisp white exterior with subtle Pepe Jeans London livery the hot-hatch stole the spotlight at Clothes Show Live.
Suzuki also had top fashion blog What Katie Wore on its stand snapping pics of the hottest girls in the hippest outfits at the show. To take a look at some of the best looks at the show log on to What Katie Wore.

Old look for new Heritage showroom

One of the hottest projects which our design team is working on right now is Heritage by Pepe Jeans London.

Rooted in vintage Americana, the Heritage collection is inspired by iconic military and workwear styles from the last 150 years. The beautifully crafted pre-collection includes authentically aged selvedge denims, chinos, shirts, and jackets. With its Americana emphasis our Amsterdam design team has been plundering the history books, finding inspiration in jeans first worn by prospectors in the great American Gold Rush, alongside pleat-fronted denim trucker jackets, 1960s field coats, and chambray shirting.

The Heritage capsule collection has been developed to whet the appetites of buyers before we unveil a full Heritage collection at the spring 2011 edition of Berlin trade show, Bread & Butter.

A couple of weeks ago the London team created a mercantile era look for the Notting Hill showroom, a wall of which can be seen in the main picture.

The pre-collection is now available to buy and wholesale prices range from £28 to £54. We'll report back soon with an in-depth look at each and every style available in the Heritage range.

For more information contact 020 7313 3800 or visit www.pepejeanslondon.com, or www.pepejeanslondon.blogspot.com.

Summer 2010 Trends: Biker Chic

The biker jacket trend is one look that refuses to give up and in the summer 2010 collections it remains the trophy item for countless fashion brands (including Pepe Jeans as pictured above), from the catwalks to the high street.

Part of its charm is the biker jacket's versatility. At the last round of catwalk shows the runways, as well as the audience rows, were littered with vertiginously heeled stick-thin models and fashion reporters in biker jackets - some teaming chic clean-lined moto jackets with ultra feminine skirts and dresses as seen on the New York catwalks at Lamb (above left) and Philip Lim (above centre), while others worked the biker jacket into a more hard-edged 1980s look or, like designer Tracy Reese (above right), opted for a more casual denim-led look.

At Pepe Jeans we're loving the tough girl biker look and have even interpreted the style into a more layering-friendly, sleeveless leather gilet (pictured left). The subtly refined lapel and silver studded surface texture screams rock'n'roll glamour and is a certified statement piece that looks as great over a sexy mini-dress as it does over a slouchy goth-rock T-shirt and spray-on jeans.

Whatever your take is on the biker jacket trend, it's one of those looks that your wardrobe cannot afford to be without this summer.

Behind The Scenes: Pepe Jean Spring 2010 fashion shoot with Alexa Chung

Ever wondered what it's like to be in the middle of a fashion shoot. Well, take a look at this behind-the-scenes footage shot during our latest spring 2010 shoot with Alexa Chung.

Thrust into the fashion spotlight aged just 16 Alexa carved out a reputation as an in-demand model long before turning her talents towards TV presenting. Gaining notoriety as much for her maverick take on fashion as her sharp-witted on-screen style, Chung quickly gathered a cult following through Channel 4’s Sunday music show, Popworld. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Chung is the modern day It Girl, with handbags named after her and her very own rock'n'roll slice of arm-candy in the shape of Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner. Last year, Chung was even awarded the trophy for Most Stylish Woman In The World by Vogue, and both the Glamour Magazine Award and Elle Style Award for Best TV Presenter.

Since Bruce Weber shot Jason Priestley for our infamous 1993 ad campaign, Pepe Jeans London has been as meticulous in selecting the hottest fashion photographers to work behind the lens as it has been in identifying the next big celebrity talents to appear in front of the camera. 
The latest ad campaign is shot by celebrated fashion photographer Tom Munro who since the mid-1990s has become renowned for his directional fashion shoots for the world’s most respected fashion magazines including American Vogue, Italian Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar,Numéro and Details. Most recently, Munro played a pivotal role in the restructuring of US Elle.

The campaign was styled by sisters Alexa and Patti Wilson, with Alexa Chung appearing alongside two of today’s most recognisable male models, Tom Guinness and Boyd Holbrook.

Is Ed Westwick the new Jason Priestley?

If you're under 30 there's a chance you won't have heard of Jason Priestley, but back in the early 1990s few teenage bedroom walls escaped without a poster or two of the brooding star. Rocketed to fame on the back of the ballistic TV missile that was Beverly Hills 90210 (cast pictured below), the original incarnation of the LA-set teen TV soap, Priestley was the 1990's answer to Jimmy Dean.

Pepe Jeans has always had a knack of partnering with iconic faces for its campaigns and back in the day we linked Priestley up with one of the world's most celebrated fashion photographers of his time, Bruce Weber. 

The results were jaw-dropping but alas we've lost many of the original images in the passage of time. The shot pictured was just one in a set of around 15 images. Take a look at the picture at Priestley Mark II, Ed Westwick. This image of the star of Gossip Girl was shot for a recent issue of Arena Homme Plus.

We at Pepe Towers can't help but be reminded, in a misty-eyed kind of way, of that shoot with Bruce and Jason.

Summer 2010 Trends: Army Jackets

Still showing no signs of deserting the trends radar, the military look simply refuses to play dead. Backed by everyone from catwalk king Balmain to high street hit River Island, the one piece that no girl should be without this summer is the army jacket.

Reinterpreted in casual summer fabrics including cotton twills laundered for that lived-in look, the silhouette has to be super-lean and sexy. Balmain (pictured from www.vogue.com) embraced a dressed-up take on the look, mixing army jackets with sequin cargo pants, leather hot-pants and spray-on biker jeans, but this look works just as well mixed with a pair of vintage wash skinny jeans as modelled in the main picture by Alexa Chung, this season’s face of Pepe Jeans.

Inspired by a more regimental look, the Pepe Jeans army jacket is a cropped cotton style in stone with drummer boy details and antiqued brass buttons. Already a hit with the models pictured backstage in both New York and Paris, the army jacket might just have enough fire-power to knock the biker jacket off its popularity throne.

To find out where you can pick up the Pepe Jeans army jacket call 020 7313 3800.