For better or worse, the menswear crowd seems to have found a new obsession in jazz — both its icons, such as Miles Davis and the recently departed Sonny Rollins, and its decades of iconic merchandise designs.
Despite the fact that, according to designer Dan Snyder, “buying a vintage jazz T-shirt is like a competitive sport now,” the trend couldn’t have come at a better time for Snyder’s cult-followed NYC brand, Corridor. The brand has just launched a handful of jazz-centric styles to celebrate the centennial of John Coltrane’s birth.
Founded in 2013, Corridor has since become synonymous with a specific strain of “normal, nice” clothing — quiet, considered apparel that’s become a favorite among a creative class of musicians, DJs and artists — and, in keeping with the brand’s creative codes, the resulting collection, a tight five-item lineup designed in partnership with jazz label Verve Records and the Coltrane estate, is relatively subdued.
The capsule, which pays homage to the legendary musician and his seminal 1965 album A Love Supreme with a pair of tees ($65) featuring stylized graphics of John and Alice Coltrane, two stonewashed hats ($55) and a textured sweater featuring a minimalist intarsia knit ($295) has a decidedly retro feel, a product of a time before overwrought branding and extreme silhouettes.
This was a highly intentional choice. “We wanted to make something that would be the best jazz merch you could imagine finding at a vintage store,” said Snyder. “A lot of my friends collect old jazz T-shirts, and the good ones are incredibly hard to find now and usually very expensive. We wanted to create something that felt like the perfect vintage find, something you’d discover at the Rose Bowl, but at a more democratic and accessible price point.”
Rather than go crazy with the visual design language or try to recreate classic references, Snyder prioritized the feel of the garments to better mimic the energy, both physical and emotional, associated with Coltrane’s music. “We are less interested in recreating classic clothing than in making clothing that carries feeling — something more soulful and expressive.”
The intarsia knit, which features a unique pima-bouclé blend, was produced by a longtime partner (and family-run) factory, while the color sequencing — both the grayscaling of the sweater and the warm orange-on-black scheme of the Alice Coltrane hat — was specifically chosen for its “emotional resonance.”
“Ultimately, the collection tries to bring together our design philosophy, our production philosophy, and the ethos of the artists we admire,” said Snyder. “Our work has always been about trying to translate emotion, music, texture, and feeling into physical objects.”
The Corridor x Coltrane collection is available to shop now at the brand’s webstore.
More Like This
This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture..