Never Say Dye

White denim done right

May 15, 2006—We've recently taken courageous stands against a number of serious issues facing the American male, from the rise of the pretentious chef to the misuse of the velvet blazer to the golfer's short path from green to grave. Rather than add to the list with a rant against one of this season's more annoying developments—the proliferation of that Eurotrash staple, white jeans—we've decided to take a positive tack and endorse an alternative. Skip the jeans, but get the jean jacket. As the Levi's version pictured here shows, a jacket hewn from white denim can be both sleek and rugged, more Steve McQueen than Flavio Briatore. As Brett Anderson of Levi's points out, "It's preppy, it's minimalist, it just fits into so many moods that are happening now." Jim Wetzel, co-owner of Chicago's Jake boutiques, concurs. He describes the cropped version he's selling (by the, er, white-hot denim label Acne) as "fashionable without being over-the-top tricky." Sounds like a formula to us.
Levi's Whiteout Trucker jacket, $68, available at www.levi.com; White Acne jean jacket, $225, available at Jake, 3740 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, (773) 929-5253, www.shopjake.com.