Self Edge x Imperial Is an Ode to Bay Area Streetwear
With local designers Benny Gold, MEGA and Jamael Savage fronting the campaign.
Kiya Babzani‘s Self Edge started out as an upstart denim boutique in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District. Inspired (and rivaled) by Bay Area staple HUF – hot off its Hufquake Nike collab at the time – Babzani, who had first discovered Japanese denim on a buying trip to Hong Kong, launched Self Edge with his now-wife Demitra Georgopoulos. Stocked with raw Japanese denim, Self Edge became home to hard-to-find jeans in the U.S. as well as locally sourced smaller brands, quickly garnering a loyal community of online denimheads and streetwear fiends.
In Self Edge’s newest collab, it’s paying homage to its comeuppance; comprised of three new styles of raw denim, Self Edge tapped a brand it used to carry – Australian denim label Imperial, which closed up shop in 2016 – to revive the imprint with a one-off capsule collection that commemorates the Bay Area streetwear community. Complete with a locally-led lookbook, Self Edge x Imperial reminds us all that it’s not just New York City that’s elevating the streetwear scene.
“Imperial [was] excited to do this project, to do a jean again,” Babzani explains in a recent editorial. “We developed the fabric in Japan and we’ve got two fits, a straight leg and a straight tapered fit, bringing them up to date for today.”
Benny Gold of the eponymous Benny Gold, MEGA of Black Scale and Jamael Savage of UNDFTD flex the new capsule in a lively campaign; Gold, MEGA and Savage also all worked at HUF at some point in their careers.
The trio rocks the SELF EDGE X IMPERIAL = SEXI26-1947 – CLASSIC STRAIGHT LEG jeans, SELF EDGE X IMPERIAL = SEXI26-ST – STRAIGHT TAPERED jeans and the IMPERIAL SE23BSP SLIM TAPERED jeans, which retail for $325 USD, $325 USD and $335 USD, respectively. Check out the full lookbook in the gallery above, which sees the three posted up around the Bay Area.
“I can’t stress enough how heavily the Asian communities in the South Bay supported us, and how much that support helped us get through the first few years—we wouldn’t have been able to open in New York or LA without them,” Babzani continued.
Shop Self Edge x Imperial now on Self Edge’s webstore.
