10 Years Later, Evan Kinori Is Still Designing for Evan Kinori
For a certain kind of menswear dork — *me* — this weekend is a very special occasion. The spring collections have been flooding stores for weeks already, but there's one collection in particular yet to drop. Evan Kinori, the San Francisco-based designer with a preternatural commitment to natural fabrics and easy cuts, operates on his own schedule. Today, the day after the spring equinox, the designer launches his new collection at the brand’s SF studio store, and it arrives online on Sunday.
Fashion's bizarre shipping schedule usually has spring clothes arriving in stores just after the New Year. So, while Kinori's timing is seasonally correct, it comes loaded with the weight of anticipation — it's around this time of year that I find myself craving a new linen shirt or pair of double-pleated trousers. And he usually delivers.
I’m a huge fan of Kinori's work — full disclosure, we're friends, too. Knowing the collection was coming, I rang him for a preview of the new clothes, and to hear about what's on his mind lately — including that shady Zara ad.
So without further ado, here's your official first look at Evan Kinori's Spring 2025 line, and his thoughts about it.
Ten years in the game, do you still get excited about launching a new season?
It's always a challenge to bring a product to life. No matter how small or big a project, there's ideas and then months later there's reality at the end when it's produced. I think that challenge of turning ideas into reality is what keeps it exciting and engaging no matter how many times you do it. It's never perfect and there are always things to learn and improve upon. Each round of editions is an evolution — we're constantly trying to push the textile development deeper with the goal of moving towards completely original and custom designed fabrics. That's really exciting and allows for a fully-realized, complete expression of a feeling or idea, as opposed to a response, or being a selector. In many ways this feels like it's just the beginning, really.
You tend to evolve pretty slowly. What are some things about the collection that feel like steps forward for you?
As far as the styles or shapes — it just tracks with how I dress and it has since the beginning. I went to design school to learn how to make clothes for myself. What I made in 2015 is what I wore then. That just kept evolving and continuing through each year — introducing a new style or two when I was getting focused on a new piece to wear. We still produce all the shapes from 2015 which I think is pretty cool. It's something I always wanted some of the older legacy brands to embrace more — to keep the classics going, to always have a selection of signature pieces available. We also limit ourselves by the technical skill level of our patternmaking in-house, which may not last forever but has been something important to me that gives the product its own unique DNA — as we take each piece from idea to sewn sample in our studio.
The textile evolution is probably the element that evolves the most rapidly and has continued to do so since 2015. At first I worked with whatever fabrics I could get my hands on — mostly buying deadstock rolls from local factories which meant mostly workwear fabrics like canvas and denim. Over time, I researched and found fabric companies with stock programs or low minimums which opened the doors wider to selecting more interesting materials. That kept evolving over the past decade — working with smaller and smaller producers to find what I would consider to be some of the most unique and rare natural fiber textiles being produced in the world.
You have a pretty large and dedicated following at this point. How much do you design with them in mind?
To be honest, not at all. I mean, there are maybe some intuitive commercial considerations of color or material weights or qualities of drape — thinking about wearability or function or durability in a general sense, but not like "who is our customer?" type of considerations. I am the customer —it's got to get me excited to make it. The shapes, the fabrics — I have to really believe in it, and even then we still ask a lot of questions about why it should be made, and think critically about its usage and how it will age, etcetera.
You’ve been expanding into furniture. How has that changed the way you think about designing clothes?
I'm not sure if it's affected the clothing approach specifically — but maybe it's given me an outlet for something that's not achievable in clothing. Mainly the ability to make a completely local, regional product.
The store in SF seems to be thriving. Are you thinking about expanding your brick and mortar footprint?
It's a consideration, but the challenge to me is how to do it in a way that's meaningful — both for me and for our clients. I place a lot of importance on the experience in our studio/shop space. I don't want it to feel like a store or just typical retail. So the challenge is how to make a living dynamic space in more than one place, or how to do it somewhere we aren't also on site working in. There are some ideas floating around, but time will tell.
Tell me about the Headlands exhibition.
The exhibitions are one way to challenge typical retail experience. We did it in New York last spring. Headlands was the second iteration. It's temporary and fleeting, and allows the invitation of different collaborators or a different curation of objects, and also we've made special edition products for each one. I'd like to keep traveling around with it — different locations with different curation and a unique experience that only happens once — basically the opposite of buying a product online.
Every successful designer has their share of biters. Do you notice derivative brands out there? Do you take it as flattery or acts of aggression?
It can be a fine line between *inspired by* and then just sort of laziness. Kinda like "Good artists copy, great artists steal." I think your inspirations should be sublimated into your work so as to make something original out of an amalgam of ideas and references. Ideally your references aren't easy to decipher. The weirdest part is when someone just copies a pattern shape — there are certain quirks or details of my designs that I know very intimately, having hand drawn them on a piece of paper. There have been a couple of times where I've seen an elastic waist pant with the back right pocket and I can recognize the leg shape or something about the inseam and that's just kind of bizarre. But for the most part, it doesn't really matter. I just try to focus on what we're doing and where we're going and keep pushing the development side deeper. A wise person once told me "they can't copy your brain."
Speaking of, surely you saw that Zara image. What did you think when you saw that?
Just kind of surreal more than anything. Again it doesn't really matter, but it's just funny to see that laziness or inability to take something and reinterpret it. The biggest question is whether it was AI or if a real set was built.
What do you have in store for the 10th anniversary of the brand?
I still need to work through some ideas, but I'd like to do events with some of the shops that have supported my work over the years. Probably in the summer and fall. Also just had the first meeting about working on a book project which I think will be really fun to spend time on.
What gets you most excited for the next 10 years?
Again, it just really feels like I've only scratched the surface. I'm looking forward to making more time for development, research and exploration — going deeper into textile design and making completely original product. Sharing more stories about the process and the craft behind making good clothes. Finding a way to make a cool compostable sneaker. Working on new spaces. Making more print materials. Making incense on Awaji Island... Lots of possibilities!
