This Canadian Store Is Behind Menswear’s Coolest In-House Label
Looking for more clothing stores we love? Haven is in great company.
Multi-brand menswear retailers have a tough job. Curating a cohesive assortment of brands that deliver a distinct point of view is both an art and a science, and when you’re working with limited budgets and slim margins (not to mention tariffs), stores have to use every avenue they can to stay afloat.
One route is to produce clothes yourself under an in-house label. It operates much like a DTC brand, cutting out the middle man and offering the product at a more competitive price. But in-house labels often lack character and feel like a watered-down version of something the store already stocks. An in-house label should be a distillation of what the store stands for and should fill in the spaces that third-party brands can’t. When a great multi-brand retailer has a distinct point of view, why shouldn’t its own label?
At Vancouver’s HAVEN shop, activewear meshes with Japanese denim, high fashion with gorpcore in a way that feels natural yet distinct. Its curation is wide but sharp, with brands like A.Presse, Goldwin, Satisfy, Lemaire, and Kapital on offer. The aesthetic is clear, yet offers something for everyone, like any great retailer. Even so, HAVEN’s team still saw gaps within their own brand matrix. So in 2018, they launched the HAVEN brand.
“Our least favorite thing is when people call us an in-house line or a shop brand or like a side label or something like that,” says Nick Roethel, brand manager for HAVEN brand, the uh, design arm of HAVEN shop. I can see why. It’s always been one of the very few in-house labels that, to me, felt like an independent brand. More than anything, HAVEN brand is inspired by Vancouver’s Pacific Northwest climate. So you’ll see a bevy of waterproof shells and down-insulated layers, which can help you get through the area’s notoriously rainy and frigid winters.
Amidst the weatherproofed technical gear you’ll also find hand-knit cardigans, corduroy work shirts, and trucker jackets made of Japanese denim. It’s a mix of lifestyle-focused garments with heritage inspiration and a modern edge. “It gives you a sense of quiet confidence,” he says, “and you don’t have to overthink it too much.”
HAVEN brand pulls no punches, especially when it comes to quality. Roethel says about 70% of it is made in Vancouver, much of it in factories within 10 minutes of the HAVEN headquarters. The other 30% is produced in Japan. The material palette is a droolworthy mix of fabrics from Gore-Tex and Loro Piana as well as Japanese selvedge denims and merino wools, the kind of stuff you’d expect from any one of the high-end craft-focused labels that they carry at the shop. Roethel explains that they’re trying to be the best in every category they enter. They’re not necessarily trying to compete on value.
Roethel told me that the team felt frustrated that there never seemed to be the right product for their environment. While many brands had the design chops, they lacked functionality. On the flip side, many technical brands were great for performance but looked too crunchy.
The result is a floor-to-ceiling brand that bridges old-school craftsmanship with new-wave design and vice versa. Take, for example, the HAVEN brand’s Pilot Jacket. Based on vintage L-2A bomber jackets, it’s rendered in Loro Piana 3L Storm System fabric, a three-layer material that’s wind-resistant and waterproof like Gore-Tex but has the look and feel of a luxurious doeskin wool. Kitted out with Primaloft Gold insulation, rarified two-way Excella zippers, and Japanese wool ribbing, it’s a perfect fusion of the past and present and a distillation of the brand in a single garment.
