Thinking about switching careers? Let I.J. Kim be your inspiration. After working successfully as a mechanical engineer, he didn’t just change jobs—he left the industry entirely, swapping science for fashion. He chalks it up to something of an epiphany: “I was working as an engineer and went to Johns Hopkins to get my MBA, but after the program, I really just wanted to do something I loved,” he tells Vogue. “[Growing up] I was hard-core into science, and most of my family members in Korea were doctors, so they had really high expectations of me. I was doing college-level biology, calculus, physics, and chemistry in seventh grade—I didn’t have time to pursue anything except studying.” So he turned down jobs in New York and San Francisco, moved to Los Angeles, and literally went “knocking on doors” at factories to learn everything he could about his other obsession: denim.


Kim says his fascination with jeans began when he was 13 years old and moved from Korea to the U.S., where he bought his very first pair. “In Korea, I wore a private school uniform every day, so I was shocked to see that even teachers were wearing jeans to school, not suits,” he says. “I got one pair of Levi’s that became my uniform, and I immediately fell in love with denim. It’s amazing how it ages with you and how you can see a person’s lifestyle in it . . . . I started collecting vintage denim, and that was really the starting point of all of this.” Last year, he launched his line, Trave, with a small collection of high-quality, vintage-inspired jeans that look simple, but actually incorporate a lot of Kim’s engineering background. For starters, there’s the name. Trave is an architecture term that refers to “a crossbeam or formal support structure against which others can rise”; Kim compares the role of denim in our wardrobes to the basic parts in a machine or code. “With engineering, I learned to appreciate the fundamental elements of everything,” he says. “If the foundation isn’t strong, whatever you build on top isn’t going to last. That’s my whole attitude towards this brand. Denim should be the foundation of your wardrobe, supporting the other pieces you wear with it. So I focus on the really fundamental basics—construction, fit, and fabric, and making it all more sophisticated and elevated.”

Trave jeans are sleek and logo-free, and in lieu of trendy silhouettes or washes, you’ll find some of the simplest, most refined-looking jeans around—the kind you can wear every day, with everything from a T-shirt to a velvet jacket. For true denimheads, they have qualities you typically only find in vintage jeans: They’re non-stretch, but still soft and wearable; they come in no-fuss, elegant silhouettes; and they’re nuanced in the construction of side seams, pockets, rivets, and other underappreciated details. The denim itself is actually intended for men’s jeans; Kim chose it for his women’s line because it’s rigid, but not overly stiff or heavy. “I focus on details that others usually don’t look at,” he adds. The Audrey jean, for instance, is made without a side seam, which his sewing factory told him wasn’t possible—so Kim studied the patterns for a few weeks, “rearranged the whole operation,” and figured out how to make it work. “I think other brands would just take a shortcut and put in a side seam and move on,” he says. “These details I care about are really subtle, but they’re meant for people who really understand denim and appreciate the craftsmanship. They want a really good jean they can wear over and over without constantly needing something new.”

The Spring 2019 collection, pictured here, was designed along similar lines, with several new fits and surprising washes. In addition to classic indigo, black, white, and baby blue, there’s beige, rust, faded terra-cotta, olive, and bright cherry. If the idea of colored denim doesn’t seem to jibe with Kim’s missive for timeless, “fundamental” jeans, he pulled those colors directly from nature. He was mainly looking at Japanese gardens, which are designed to blend perfectly into the landscape around them: “I believe nature is the foundation of color, and for hundreds of years, Asian gardens were built around Mother Nature,” he says. “They even paid attention to the color of the fish in the ponds, the color of the sand, the rocks, [how the colors would look] against the sky, the moonlight on the pond . . . . It’s about appreciating those fundamental colors you find in nature.”

In clean, untrendy silhouettes, it’s easy to picture that colorful denim living in your closet for a long time, whether you’re wearing it head-to-toe (with a matching chore jacket or three-button blazer) or mixing it with other items in your closet. “Our thing is that we want to create a full wardrobe of denim,” Kim says. “I know it doesn’t make sense business-wise to say you want your customer to just buy a few pairs of jeans, but we’re trying to make them perfect so they don’t just get thrown away. My point of view is to make few, but wear well. It’s about quality.” Right now, you can find Trave jeans at Vince and Garmentory; the Spring 2019 collection will be stocked at Jeffrey, Elyse Walker, Nordstrom, Ron Herman, Shopbop, and Hero Shop, among others, with prices starting around $250.

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