Grady Mac Denim
Brand manager · Nashville · 2013–2014
The brief
Tullahoma Industries is a family garment maker in Tullahoma, Tennessee, sewing since 1969; its work includes fire-resistant combat uniforms for the Department of Defense. The family wanted a jeans brand of its own, and they had already chosen the name. Grady Mac is named for Grady MacKnight, the late grandfather of company president Jamie Davenport. My job was to build a brand worthy of the name.
My role
I was hired as brand manager, and I led the creative. I hired HOOK, a Charleston agency, and directed their work. I set the aesthetic direction, chose the models and gave the instructions they designed from. I also hired and led the sales team and the in-house graphic designer.
Decisions
The mark is a monogram badge and a hand-lettered script, built to hold up at the size of a leather patch and on a storefront.
The hangtag tells the story at the point of sale. Born and bred in Tennessee, hand-stitched, made to wear daily.
The campaign puts the denim on real people in real places. I cast the models, chose and styled the clothes, and picked the locations. We shot around Charleston in a motorcycle garage, on a country bridge with an old pickup, and on the porch and in the gardens of an old estate. Sully Sullivan took the photographs.
The leather patch carries the mark onto every pair.
We developed seven fits for launch, a Relaxed, Straight and Bootcut for men and a Skinny, Mid-Rise Bootcut, Boyfriend and Straight for women, each with its own style number, like the 206 Straight and the 1350 Boyfriend. Small-batch Italian and Japanese denims were planned to follow.
Results
We launched online on March 14, 2014, selling direct from the factory, with the Fit Pack for anyone who had never bought jeans without trying them on. Three pairs shipped for the price of one, you kept the pair that fit and sent the other two back. Nashville Lifestyles ran a style spotlight two days before, and the factory opened a store in Tullahoma with windows onto the sewing floor.
Inside the year an inspection delay on the factory’s defense contracts froze its budget for everything but the sewing floor, the brand team could not stay on unpaid, and Grady Mac went quiet. The work on this page is what the year produced.
Brand and creative direction: Daniel Bear Hunley. Design: HOOK, Charleston. Photography: Sully Sullivan.