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.

Pepe Jeans reveals new autumn 2010 campaign featuring Alexa Chung and Jon Kortajarena

Back for her second season as the face of Pepe Jeans London, celebrity TV presenter and fashion-forward model Alexa Chung gets to grips with the Autumn 2010 collection with a little help from the hottest property in male modeling, Jon Kortajarena.

The latest Pepe Jeans London campaign finds the Brit-born denim brand returning to Notting Hill’s Portobello Road, the birthplace of the brand, with a photo story which celebrates the brand’s British roots.

Joining super-chic trendsetter Alexa Chung in front of the camera are 21 year-old French model Gaspard Menier and fashion’s most in-demand male model, 25-year old Jon Kortajarena.

Since being discovered eight years ago sitting on the spectator side of the runway by a scout at Spanish Fashion Week, Kortajarena has been at the centre of a fashion whirlwind since first leaving his home in Bilbao aged just 17.

Likened in looks to French actor Anthony Delon, Kortajarena is the only male model to have appeared across 200 pages of the same issue of bi-annual French fashion bible L’Officiel Hommes. Later that year in 2008 Kortajarena was the face of five major fashion campaigns at a single time. His career took a stella turn last year, when he appeared in Tom Ford’s critically acclaimed directorial film debut A Single Man, alongside Colin Firth who won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie.

Set against the backdrop of Portobello’s streets, cafes and record stores, the Autumn 2010 Pepe Jeans London shoot brings together a creative team made up almost exclusively of British talent. Directing the models is creative director Tom Hingston. Famed for his high-gloss advertising work with fashion brands as well as his graphics-led cover art for music stars including Robbie Williams and Massive Attack, Hingston swaps his ultra-polished trademark style for the realist aesthetic which informs the latest Pepe Jeans London shoot.

When it came to selecting the right photographer to capture the group shots, London photographer Josh Olins was drafted in. Renowned for his slick compositions of traditionally tricky group shots, Olins delivered a clean, retro-tinged theme set against an urban backdrop.

Styling duties were given to another Londoner, Clare Richardson, whose name has become synonymous with edgy editorial-led fashion stories, and whose resumé includes styling gigs with V Man, WWD,Mixte and Man About Town, among others.

Webber survives horrific crash but Vettel wins in Valencia

What a day for Red Bull at the European Formula 1 Grand Prix in Valencia in Spain. An amazing victory for our driver Sebastian Vettel who bounced himself back into contention for the world championship with an easy win in Valencia.

Mark Webber suffered a spectacular accident as he ran on the back of Lotus´s Kovalainen in the early laps. His Red Bull car somersaulted backwards through 180 degrees and landed upside down, flipped back on to its wheels, and then speared headfirst into the tyre wall at very high speed. Fortunately he is absolutely fine, no injuries but his accident underlined not only the dangers of Formula 1 but also the incredible safety technology within each car.

Sebastian Vettel who brilliantly obtained the pole position on Saturday in an exciting qualifying session, led from the beginning and defended his position strongly during the whole race. After some bad luck recently, this victory should be a boost for this confidence.

It was an exciting day in Valencia. With everyone on the Pepe Jeans and Red Bull teams ecstatic over Vettel´s victory and relieved that Webber is fine after his accident.  We look forward now to Silverstone and the UK Grand Prix in just two weeks. Bring it on.

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.

Red Bull F1 Team takes Monaco

It was a repeat performance yesterday on the streets of sun-drenched Monaco where the drivers of the Pepe Jeans-sponsored Red Bull F1 team took both the first and second positions on the race winners' podium.
From his starting position at the front of the grid Aussie driver Mark Webber (pictured above with race legend Jackie Stewart, left) took a comprehensive control of the race increasing his lead with every lap until a frustrating succession of four safety car periods stymied his leading margin.

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel played down any disappointment in coming second place for the second consecutive race saying that his main focus through the race was to hold Renault's Robert Kubica's to third place.

According to Mark Webber, it was "the greatest day of my life", although the driver admitted that the championship battle was still wide-open. Red Bull's second 1-2 finish of the season propels the team to the top of the constructors' table, and left Webber and Vettel tied on 78 points at the head of the drivers' standings.

After, a well-deserved evening partying with the team in Monaco, the team today starts packing up for the next leg of the season in Istanbul on May 30th .

Pepe Jeans and Red Bull take first place in Barcelona

The Pepe Jeans-sponsored Red Bull team asserted its dominance over the Formula One world once more on Sunday with a victory at the Barcelona Grand Prix. Hurrah!

Webber led from pole to flag and, although his Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel was out-raced by Lewis Hamilton in McLaren, Hamilton was forced out of the race in the penultimate lap with a burst tyre. 

Hamilton's misfortune resulted in a third place for Sebastian in one of the closest run races of the season so far. 

Back at Pepe's London HQ in Notting Hill we all have our fingers crossed for this weekend's Grand Prix in Monaco. Raced around the streets of Monaco there's little chance of overtaking which means there could be a fair-share of pile-ups. 

Girls Aloud Star gets to know Pepe

We've just spent the day filming in the London Pepe Jeans showroom with none other than Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh.

It's all part of a new TV documentary charting the history of denim, fronted by the unsettlingly down-to-earth Kimberley. The TV production company have already been across Europe and have just returned from the US where they met Levi's, Wrangler and Lee, as well as a rash of LA women's brands. They of course wanted to get the inside-track on Pepe Jeans, the biggest Brit-born denim success in the world, so we flew over our very own head of denim design Trevor Harrison.

Starting below the bridge on Portobello Road where Pepe Jeans was first introduced to an unsuspecting public via a humble market stall, we charted the history of the brand before winding up back at the showroom where Trevor eulogised about the science behind today's elaborate washes before duscussing the significance of jeans in popular culture.

When we asked Kimberley about the best thing about being in the most commercially successful girl band in history she casually said: "Probably playing live at the O2 in front of 20,000 fans". Guess that beats the buzz of Berlin trade show Bread & Butter then.

The TV show will air on Sky 1 in mid June, but we'll follow with more details.

Roll Up, Roll Up for the Carnaby Street Extravaganza

Pepe Jeans has partnered up with Grazia magazine for a super-exclusive shopping event around the Carnaby Street area. The Carnaby 20% Shopping Evening, to be held next Thursday 13th May, enables anyone with a free ticket to take advantage of, you guessed it, 20% off at over 100 shops, bars and restaurants in the 12 streets criss-crossing Carnaby Street.
There'll be live bands, DJ sets, free giveaways and expert-led shopping tips from 5-9pm. You can also enjoy a complimentary cocktail at The Kingly Club's pop-up bar in Kingly Court to help celebrate its new 1980s themed night, Wild Nobility.
For more details and to register for your free ticket, click here.

Pick up a bargain at Pepe Jeans Discount Shopping Night

Pepe Jeans' Neal Street store has teamed up with London Evening Standard and Seven Dials for an exclusive discount shopping evening tomorrow on Thursday 29th April.
Starting from 5pm shoppers can not only claim a fantastic 20% discount at the Pepe Jeans store, and other participating Covent Garden shops, but they can also enjoy a slice of late night Mediterranean-style shopping as the promotion stretches to 9pm. And, if the weather men are right we could be expecting one of the warmest evenings of the year so far. Yayyyy.
To claim your 20% discount log on to www.sevendials.co.uk/standard and print out a voucher. Also, keep a lookout for anyone wearing a Seven Dials T-shirt as they're armed to the teeth with free goodie bags.
We'll be running  a similar promotion at our Carnaby Street store on 12th May, so stick it in your diary.

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.

Grazia delivers denim fix

Denim junkies would be well advised to lay their hands on this week's issue of Grazia magazine. With thirteen pages dedicated to the season's must have denim looks, the Grazia fashion team reveals the best styles for almost every body shape. Included on pages 91 and 93 are two of Pepe Jeans' hottest styles, our oversized Judo jean and the paper thin Pixie jegging.

Twin Peaks gets a second outing

Fans of twisted 1990s TV masterpiece Twin Peaks have been rejoicing since news hit that the complete two series box-set is available on DVD.


Die-hard viewers were left stewing after the series' madcap director David Lynch vowed that his hit homage to teen angst, daytime soaps, and murder mysteries would never be repeated on British TV.

Almost 20 years have now passed since FBI agent Dale Cooper (pictured above with the Little Man From Another Place), played by Kyle MacLachlan, arrived at the small Washington town Twin Peaks on the trail of a killer. When high school homecoming queen Laura Palmer (pictured below) is found brutally murdered MacLachlan's eccentric FBI agent is sent on a seemingly straightforward assignment which finds him slowly picking away the town's squeeky clean veneer to expose the kind of savagely dark critique of American society that Lynch has made his creative playground.

If you haven't seen or heard of Twin Peaks let your imagination off the hook and get your hands on the DVD box-set, if only to discover the macabre secrets that lurk in the woods.

Is this the blingest bike on the block?

The recent spate of sunny weather has convinced a few of us to dust down our bicycles for a spot of a springtime cycling.
While, we're certainly fans of super-hot cycle designs nothing could convince us to take to the saddle of Aurumania's latest offer which is a solid 24-carat gold and Swarovski crystal encrusted bike with a sexy Brooks saddle and hand-sewn grips.
With its lofty price-tag of £65,000, we're thinking that we'd need a very special lock indeed to keep this bling baby safe from the attentions of Notting Hill's more light-fingered folk. 

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.

Pepe Jeans takes to the podium in Malaysia

Wahey - the Pepe Jeans-sponsored Red Bull team took first and second places in yesterday's Malaysian Grand Prix.
After a disappointing start to the season with Sebastian Vettel's car limping out of the first two races due to mechanical failures, despite taking the pole in both, yesterday the entire team had plenty to celebrate about.
Vettel shot from third to first on the first lap, which is where he stayed until the end of the race.
We're all looking forward to the next leg on April 18 in China. Fingers crossed the cars keep hold of their mojo.

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. 

Vettel goes from pole to pain

In case you didn't already know Pepe Jeans is sponsoring the Formula One Red Bull team this season. So, you can imagine our groans of intense frustration yesterday when, after winning pole position for the second consecutive race of the season, we lost out for the second Grand Prix of the season due to mechanical problems.

In the first Grand Prix in Bahrain, faulty spark plugs led to Sebastian Vettel dropping from first place to fourth, while in Australia it was Vettel's brakes that failed. "I had some sparks coming up from the left wheel," said Vettel. "We didn't know what it was so I wanted to pit. A couple of corners before the end of that lap I had a huge vibration building up and, when I touched the brakes going in to turn 13, I had some sort of failure and ended up in the gravel. It breaks my balls not to win but there's a long way to go in this championship," added Vettel, who ran off the Albert Park track in 2009 while fighting for second with BMW's Robert Kubica.

It's clear that Red Bull has the fastest car on the track,but until the team irons out its reliability issues it doesn't look like Pepe Jeans will be sharing its place on a Formula One podium. 

Paul Newman comes to the South Bank

You have to love Paul Newman. From Cool Hand Luke to Ceaser Salad Dressing, the man is an all-round  legend and a phenomenal ambassador for denim.

In April, some of the most acclaimed celluloid works from this versatile actor, boundless philanthropist, motorcycle nut and one-time semi-pro race-car driver are being showcased by the British Film Institute. From April 1-30 in a season dedicated to Paul Newman, you can catch Cool Hand Luke, The Verdict, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Sting, The Hustler and Scorsese's Oscar-winning sequel The Colour Of Money at London's South Bank.

Tickets are priced from £6.40-£9 and you can book tickets at www.bfi.org.uk.

Vampire Weekend takes preppy to the dancefloor

It may have been out for a couple of months now but here at Pepe Jeans HQ we're still getting our audio kicks from Vampire Weekend's second long-player, Contra.

Yes, we were hooked from the second we caught A-Punk back in 2008. And, little could have prepared us for the bouncy Senagalese-inspired pop that was to define the band's self-titled debut album. But, two years on we're just as stoked by the band's latest offer.

The African/Peter Gabriel-esque lilts may be less dominant but the new sound is no less intoxicating, with its melting pot of new wave, ska, synth-pop, punk, and even classical creating a bouncy self-deprecating pop personality with enough urgency to fill a dancefloor.

The band's thrift-store preppy sensibilities have also caught our attention. Lived-in chinos, lazy-day polo shirts and collegiate knits have rarely looked so hot. Preppy rocks.

Summer 2010 Trends: Blue on Black denim

Ignore traditional style advise - blue on black is definitely one of the hottest looks for the summer. It's been bubbling under for a while now and has been as relevant for dapper chaps combining black knits with inky blue suits, as it has been for catwalk queens mixing floaty black tops with sludgy blue peg leg pants.

The influence for Pepe Jeans comes straight from the streets of Camden where indie-rock urchins like T4 presenter Nick Grimshaw (pictured left), have been combining beaten-up, size-too-small denim jackets and shirts with black skinny jeans for the last 12 months.

Avoid raw denim or dark indigo jackets for this look, as it's all about getting the contrast right. So, go for a mid-blue denim top (whether it's a chambray shirt or a trucker jacket) and match it with a pair of black or slightly washed-out black jeans, the skinnier the better.

At Pepe we're loving this season's black Pixie jean (see main picture of Alexa above) which has all the proportions of a jegging but with the silhouette and detailing you'd expect from a five-pocket jean.