Can Alex Mill Figure Out What J.Crew Couldn’t?

Somsack Sikhounmuong, the creative director of Alex Mill, is pointing at the pocket on his popover shirt. This is not just any ordinary pocket. Sikhounmuong says it took three full days to get the particulars just right: the gentle sloping of the stitch from the top down to the bottom right corner. The wee button placed just north of the pocket’s center that fastens it together from the side rather than the top. Most importantly, the pocket represents an evolution for Alex Mill, from what founder Alex Drexler calls “a niche T-shirt and shirt brand” to something else much more expansive—taking the unfussy qualities of the shirting and spreading them across an entire universe of clothing. “Classic but still designed—it can’t be boring,” says Sikhounmuong of the pocket, but he might as well be talking about everything he’s doing at the company. The pocket, he explains, is borrowed from technical outerwear. That’s the differentiator: a small element grafted from windbreakers and Patagonia fleeces onto an otherwise standard shirt. The brands advertising their perfection of classics with a twist are too numerous to name. But if any company has the background, infrastructure, and personnel to nail the concept, it just might be Alex Mill. Read more at GQ.