Revtown Is Here to Change the Way You Look at Jeans

Revtown is on a mission. 

They believe that premium, quality jeans shouldn’t have to cost hundreds of dollars. As someone who practically lives in jeans, I welcome that way of thinking.

Speaking with Revtown founder Henry Stafford, the former chief merchandising officer and president of North America for Under Armour, we learned what the company is all about and how it came to be. 

Above all, Stafford stressed that the company is built upon three core tenets: 

• Revitalizing the category. The company sees jeans as the fabric (pun intended) of this country, with Americana and denim going hand in hand.
• Revolutionizing the way people buy jeans. Revtown developed a “digital tailor” that designs your perfect pair of jeans after you input your dimensions on Revtown’swebsite.
• Reveling in getting to build a product. The company takes pride in the brand and believes this endeavor should, at the end of the day, be fun.

Pittsburgh people through and through, the founders wanted to pay homage to their hometown, so they combined “town” with the beginning of the aforementioned three principles and that led them to the birth of Revtown.

Before we get started, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here.

Henry Stafford: Like many folks throughout many different careers, I fell into this industry. I’ve been a part of companies that make products, market products to consumers and sell them. I really love doing that, it’s really cool and fun making and developing a product. I started my career with retailers and brands that specialize in denim. I found my way to Old Navy in the early years, and I also worked with American Eagle as their CMO. This led me to meet the gang at Under Armour, and I went there with this experience in the denim world and became the president of North America and the CMO, in charge of what we made and where it was sold.

How would you describe Revtown in one or two sentences?

Stafford: Incredible jeans at an unbelievable price. That’s pretty much it.

What inspired you to start Revtown?

Stafford: What I noticed over my last few years at Under Armour was that the athletic apparel industry was on fire and I felt that denim wasn’t really innovating. To get something halfway decent, you had to spend a couple hundred dollars, and I felt the model was just wrong there.

Revtown prides itself on its Decade Denim. What exactly sets that apart from other denims and materials?

Stafford: The core of denim was always a 100 percent cotton business. Then you started to see more stretchable materials added to jeans, so you’d have jeans that were 98 percent cotton and 2 percent Lycra. What we did was we worked with what we consider tobe the best mill in the world. It’s Italian-milled denim, which is incredibly premium, and we took one of the strongest and most flexible yarns used in apparel today—it’s actually used to make anything from yoga pants to football uniforms. It’s incredibly elastic, but it’s really durable, and we fused that with our cotton yarn and our Lycra to create Decade Denim.

Allow me to geek out on this for a second. [laughs] If you have a pair of jeans and they have Lycra in them, they stretch, but they’re not durable, so you get guys with crotch and knee blowouts. In addition, it sags on you, so you’ll wear it and at the end of the day, you’ve got this fabric that’s sagging. We have this high-performance yarn that feels tailored but is also incredibly flexible. It took over a year of my life to develop this fabric. Something like this comes across once a decade, as we see it.

If someone was planning to start their own business, what is something you’d tell them?

Stafford: I get this question a lot, and there are two answers I give. You have to be clear on what your vision is. Really take the time to figure out what your vision is. You need to be clear there.

Number two, just continue to put one foot in front of the other. When you’re small and don’t have the resources, it’s easy to question whether what you’re doing is the right thing. The ones who succeed just continue to put one foot in front of the other. Just plowing forward and being resilient is super important.

What lessons have you learned since starting Revtown Jeans?

Stafford: Working with great people makes things so much easier, whether it’s the folks on your team, in your company or the partners you choose. When we started this business, we truly believed that everyone could do well. And that means not just the folks on your team or your customers, but all your partners as well. We set that tone right away, but it’s amazing when you set that tone, how quickly your partners will work with you.

I have an extreme amount of respect for those entrepreneurs who build product companies. Whether it’s sneakers, computers or a pair of jeans, it’s not easy to make products from scratch. And you’re creating something, and I really respect people who have done that along the way. Before Revtown, I’d never worked with a company that developed a product from scratch. So respecting that hustle is definitely something I’ve learned.

Marketing a business, especially a new one, can sometimes be tricky. What would you say has been the best approach for marketing Revtown?

Stafford: I think we were smart enough to know we had to take our time with it. It’s easy to blow through your budgets in marketing. So anything from paid social to affiliate programs to influencers to traditional media, we were smart enough to set up a platform and learn all these things rather than just put all our eggs in one basket. We took that first year to learn and see how we could get better. Some of the first things we did stunk, and we learned from that. Of course, after it works, it’s common sense. [laughs] Set up a platter and figure out what’s working.

What does Revtown have planned for the future?

Stafford: Being a startup, it’s hard to look too far ahead. One thing is that we just launched our business with Nordstrom, which has been fantastic. It’s a big deal. They carry the best brands in denim, and we’re competing right there with them.

We are also launching a women’s line in the third quarter of this year. We launched our business just to men, and since the launch, over 35 percent of our business [has been] women. One of the biggest complaints we got was “I can get these products for my boyfriend or my husband, but I can’t get it for myself.” So we’re working on it and we’re really excited about it.

It also goes without saying, but just reaching new audiences across the country and continent is also within our plans.