John Elliott

John Elliott was founded in 2012 in Los Angeles by John Elliott, who had previously been a basketball graphic-design freelancer and a sales associate at the LA Fred Segal store. The brand's foundational thesis was specific: produce elevated American basics — the perfect black hoodie, the perfect grey sweatpant, the perfect washed tee — at premium price points with extraordinary attention to cut, drape, and Japanese-mill or California-mill fabric sourcing. The John Elliott vocabulary settled around several specific products: the Villain Hoodie (a heavyweight loopback cotton hoodie with the brand's signature elongated drawstrings), the Escobar sweatpant (in technical French terry with the slim taper that defined the late-2010s 'menswear sweatpant' moment), the Hemi pullover, the Mercer crewneck, and the Capo Russell flannel. The brand expanded into Nike Air Force 1 collaborations (the 2017 LeBron 13 was the first major NIke deal) and a long-running New Balance 990v3 collaboration. The brand is independent and held by Elliott. John Elliott operates flagships in Los Angeles (Melrose Avenue), New York (Bond Street, Noho), San Francisco, Tokyo (Aoyama), plus international wholesale through SSENSE, MR PORTER, Nordstrom, and the major US specialty retailers. Few Los Angeles menswear brands of the 2010s have built such a focused product vocabulary at the intersection of streetwear and elevated essentials.