Jean genie

By FIONA HAWTIN

Dean Francis got the idea to start making jeans when he was working on Savile Row, London's famous bespoke tailoring street. Surrounded by young men his own age wearing cravats, the Masterton-raised Francis found it hard to get the kind of jeans he wanted.

His tailoring background meant he was super-critical of jeans he saw. Well, when you've been working at Gieves & Hawkes at No 1 Savile Row for four years, making suits worn by the rich and famous, you develop high standards.

"On Savile Row, one side of the street has five or six tailors that have been there for 200-300 years, and across the road, where the new development is, there are the new tailors that have popped up in the last 15 or so years. But if you want to get a true bespoke suit, you go to the right side of the street where all the old tailors are [Gieves & Hawkes included]," he says.

"I made a suit that Sting wore to Madonna's wedding. Rowan Atkinson, Bob Geldof and lots of famous footballers were clients," he says.

Back in New Zealand after a couple of years studying product development and textiles in Melbourne and working on his jeans concept, the 30-year-old set up his Dean Francis menswear label, selling to places such as Saks in Newmarket. He also does a men's jewellery line of cufflinks and rings.

"I use sterling silver with diamonds and rubies. People buy these $10,000 suits and you put on a $20 pair of cufflinks. I don't get that."

Applying his tailoring skills to his idea of what jeans should be, he has just started selling his men's and women's jeans through New Zealand and posh Australian menswear store Harrolds. Auckland stockists include Andrea Moore, Route 66, Texas Radio and the Big Beat, Lucie Boshier and Cube.

"Everyone in the Western world owns three pairs. Jeans are what everyone in the world wears. It's a suit."

He calls them dress jeans, although they sit alongside cult street brands in many of the stores and the Brioni suits favoured by James Bond and Donald Trump in Harrolds.

He has done his best to eliminate the big bum effect and that gaping back thing that happens so often through careful cutting on his women's designs.

"You're almost cutting the back of a jean like a trouser. With trousers you've got darts in the back to take the fullness out. To do that same concept to jeans is to do a shaped waistband so that takes all the fullness out, so you're getting that nice, clean effect at the back. In three out of four designs I'm doing shaped waistbands. It's slightly different for men. Guys can put on a pair of jeans and away they go."

Ever the bespoke tailor, Francis can't help but offer his services of fitting his jeans personally as a one-off service to some of the stockists' clients for that special pair of jeans.