It's a techy touch in a line that's otherwise rooted in a bygone menswear heyday. "I watched a lot of Westerns when I was a kid," Max Snow said on a recent morning at his studio in Jersey City, in front of an unfinished screen print of Roy Rogers. "I think it informed my opinion of how people should behave." And, of course, dress. The collection, the first of his new eponymous line sold exclusively at Opening Ceremony in the US, features heather-grey cashmere crewnecks, white bandanas, and black leather jackets, all modeled after pieces the artist-cum-designer wears himself.
In fact, if you want to dress like the tatted 29-year-old, the collection is a good way to start (photography/art-world celebrity, marriage to one of NYC's most sought-after stylists, and 1940 Knucklehead motorcycle sold separately). We wouldn't blame you. On a recent weekday morning, Snow and two collaborators showed up at OC looking like a well-dressed modern biker gang––leather, beards, and boots in equal measure. (Mostly clean-shaven, the designer recently had his beard made into a wig for a sculpture.) Any machismo was spiked with sugar: the trio brought the store staff three homemade apple pies, using Snow's grandma's recipe. As he presented pieces from his collection, he took one vest, in beautiful worn-in calfskin, off his own his shoulders. The collection's Robinson Leather Vest, is in fact, based off this piece Snow had custom-made 11 years ago, when he bought his first motorcycle. "There's a great hidden pocket for concealing substances, not that I use it much anymore," he joked.
Back to the other useful pocket. What does Snow think of cell phones? "Well, I probably wouldn't have one unless my wife made me," he admits. It's not that he's a Luddite, per se, just someone who prefers objects and interactions to be tangible. "I feel better when I have a real tool in my hand as opposed to a digital camera. Things that were in style in the '40s and '50s will always be in style. It's like when you're in a Philip Johnson house. You know it was drawn by Philip Johnson's hand, not a computer."
Snow's collection, meanwhile, has its own pedigree. The denim is sourced in Japan, the bandanas hand-printed in Brooklyn, and the T-shirts and sweaters created in a mill in Canada owned by partner David Helwani's family for over 35 years. "For me, it's cooler for men's clothes to be simple and exist beneath the radar," he said. "But, what I found was, until now, no one was