The Buzzy Denim Brand Fashion Girls Tried to Gatekeep

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On the window of the denim brand Still Here’s first store on Elizabeth street in New York, there is a small poll asking people about Capris. Founders Sonia and Maurice Mosseri call it a pop quiz. “How do you feel about Capris?” it asks, and there are four potential answers to choose from:

1. What are capris?

2. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this

3. Kinda nervous

4. Hell no

Underneath all of them in small italicized white text is the phrase, They’re back. They are two words Sonia believes ignites a fear in denim fans everywhere.

When we meet in front of the store and sit at a wooden table outside, underneath the so-called quiz on display, she is wearing a pair of denim capris she designed. “They’re not flattering—I don’t think so at least. But that’s not the point!” She loves them because they’re fun to style, especially in the summer, when you don’t often think to reach for a pair of denim. “I think that once the general public is going to be so jaded to them after seeing them everywhere that they’re not going to care if they’re flattering anymore.

While I agree that they are coming back, if Still Here makes any controversial jean style, it’s so far, been enough to make the look beloved againThe New York based brand came onto my radar, as someone who actually doesn’t wear jeans (or pants for that matter) very often, in recent months. I found myself coveting some new denim for the first time in years because I kept seeing other fashion editor friends in pairs that looked perfectly worn. They all had the kind of enviable slouch you have to spend hours scouring over racks at the vintage store to find. But when I kept asking these different fashion friends about their jeans and if they were some old Levi’s 501s from the ‘90s, I kept getting the same answer, “No, they’re Still Here!”

The brand was founded in 2018. Sonia had a love of jeans instilled in her by her father, who immigrated to the United States as a child from Egypt and used the fewdollars his parents had given him to buy jeans for school. Sonia held onto the jeans and quickly became obsessed with them. “They meant the world to me because they had patches and ink stains and marks from my grandmother mending them,” she told me. “He went to Brooklyn College, and then,I went to Brooklyn College. There was just so much memory on those jeans. So at a young age, just growing up in Brooklyn, I started collecting vintage jeans.” When she decided to pursue fine art to her parents’ dismay, she ended up hand-painting denim jeans and selling one-of-one pairs online, where they would sell out instantly.

“Maurice and I got married. We ended up doing a trade show and by the end of it, we had hundreds of boutiques that were interested in our samples, which were one-of-one samples,” she said. “And then that week, Barney’s reached out for line sheets. And we kind of looked at each other and were like, What are line sheets? But we realized there’s obviously demand for jeans—embellished jeans!—but also just jeans. I just felt strongly there was a wide space in the denim market that no one was really filling at the time.”

They both felt thatmulti-million dollar companies sold in department stores were just falling short, as far as jeans were involved, “When I was growing up I was looking at LL Bean, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein. And those were pillars that dictated my style and Still Here from a marketing and aesthetic perspective.” Sonia and Maurice wanted to find a way to recreate that effortless aesthetic that suddenly felt retro. “I’m trying to continue that story of simplicity: blue jeans and white t-shirt. The classic American uniform that looks different on everyone.” They expanded past one-of-one samples and tried to recreate the feel of her father’s old jeans. Their first pair was called the Tate, a classic vintage style jean with a tapered leg, hi-rise cut and crop wedge fit.

It took them 18 months to develop and at that point, Maurice noted, “We were like there is no way Barney’s is even going to be interested anymore.” Sonia chimed in, “We responded back to them like, Hey! Remember us?” They launched with the retailer in 2019 and the jeans sold out completely in two weeks. “It was the fastest selling jean brand on Barney’s floor in history,” Maurice noted. After placing a larger order, Barney’s filed for bankruptcy and they were back to square one. Eventually a handful of retailers, most notably Net-a-Porter, wereinterested.s they were about to fulfill their orders, Covid hit. Suddenly no one was buying jeans and no one was wearing them either.

As the pandemic subsided, they launched a DTC website.It was clear people were ready to wear jeans again. But the high return rate made them realize they needed a store where people could actually come in and get the fit right. In February of 2022 they opened up their first Still Here store, down the block from the hotel rooms where they would hold market appointments by themselves. “Three years ago, we were waiting for Net-a-Porter to come. They were running late. We were walking around the block. And we said, Wow, what if we opened a store here one day! What a dream that would be! It’s so wild,” Sonia remembered.

Since then they’ve opened up another store on Madison Ave, which they describe as a New Yorker’s dream come true, and have expanded into tops, skirts, and knits. Their Cool jeans, with a relaxed leg, low-rise fit and adjustable drawstring toggle with no waistband, broke the internet But almost every restock of any style, with names that range from Subway to Cowgirl, sells out.

Most notably they’ve built a community of denim heads obsessed with their brand. As we sit in front of the shop, I watch at least four groups of friends head into the store together to try on jeans and Sonia notes their business feels extremely word-of-mouth. “It’s funny because we find that a lot of people will come to the store, and the next time they come back, they bring friends because they want them to experience the fitting.”

As for the name of the brand, Sonia said, “We wanted it to be a nod to denim as a garment that’s been around for so long and it’ll be around forever. It’s a nod to that legacy and heritage of the actual garment, to celebrate how classic it is. And how it’s Still Here!” She laughed before adding, “I was a philosophy major.”

I pointed out it’s also like Maurice and her, who are also very much still in New York, and she nodded. “We are such a New York brand, taking advantage of all the different walks of life here that are just cool. And with Still Here, our slogan is everyday dressing, and catering to the endless stories of jeans and white t-shirts, especially in New York.”

She takes one long look at a girl tugging at her friend’s hand, leading her into the shop with an excited skip exclaiming, “It’s for everyone.”

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