Lee's Buddy Lee Collection

[Charlie Delta]

I'm sure you all know Buddy Lee, but here is his story again:

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And here on Wiki

Apart from being Lee's mascot, Buddy was probably most famous for wearing lots of different outfits and looking incredibly cute in them.

For the Buddy Lee Collection, Lee decided to blow up and exactly reproduce some of Buddy's outfits, allowing you to wear some of the stuff Buddy wore and resulting in incredibly crude but charming looking dolls garments for grown men...

Exaggerated details such as stitching and buttons galore ofcourse, but they also went as far as blowing up the fabric, which to me was most noticable in the chambray shirt.

Apparently this seems to be a Japan only line (ofcourse), so apart from what my friends over at Tenue de Nimes could tell me about it, I have not been able to find any other info.

They have also been so kind to send me some pics of the stuff they managed to hunt down, to share here.

If any one has any more info about this or has seen any other pieces, this thread would be the place to discuss them.

I personally think it's a pretty cool idea and while it somewhat echo's the Levis RED collection that inspired the Type1 and Margiela's F/W 94-95 Doll's collection, it makes perfect sense for Lee with their Buddy Lee and all his little outfits to do such a thing.

I also think it's good to see Lee experimenting with some riskier stufff.

Here's hoping this is not just some one-off/one-season project but an actual line they'll continue doing for a bit.

[tweeds]

EPIC!

these are definitely paralleling the levi's collectibles collections perhaps a bit more than RED, but all the same good on them for putting something like this out

[superBobo]

Great stuff. I had heard of it before, but never seen any details. The question, where to kop? And will peasant status afford it?

Its a fun idea, but the end result also looks very wearable, more so than RED imo.

[Charlie Delta]

Agreed, I would wear both that chambray and the crewneck without a problem and can imagine the crewneck looking really good beat up.

For now the only place I know of that has it in Europe is Tenue de Nimes and I'm unsure but they might be able to do a phoneorder for you.

What's interesting and what set's it apart from RED and Collectibles and really makes it more along the lines of that Margiela collection I mentioned is that these are based on actual garments that have been shrunk down to fit Buddy, and have now been blown up again, and instead of trying to correct they embraced the changes that came along with this "shrinking and blowing up".

And indeed ended up being very wearable...

[blm14]

Where to cop striped shirt and first pair of indigo jeans, plz?

[Paul T]

They did have them in the Lee store on Carnaby Street fairly recently - I saw the hickory stripe shirt in the flesh and it looked terrific. Last time I dropped in they had far less of the vintage inspried items, the helpful manager who showed me them had gone and I can't remember if they were still in stock. Their phone number is (020) 7434 0732

Like Levi's, Wrangler and Lee both do some really cool stuff, but it tends to get lost under the mass-market deluge.

[tweeds]

only point with that is, i imagined the pants to be much wider in the leg when "blown up" - the proportions are completely different on the life size garments

[tweeds]

They did have them in the Lee store on Carnaby Street fairly recently - I saw the hickory stripe shirt in the flesh and it looked terrific. Last time I dropped in they had far less of the vintage inspried items, the helpful manager who showed me them had gone and I can't remember if they were still in stock. Their phone number is (020) 7434 0732

Like Levi's, Wrangler and Lee both do some really cool stuff, but it tends to get lost under the mass-market deluge.

i'll drop in the lee store either today or tmr, and see what they have. would be an interesting thing to see for sure.

[superBobo]

What's interesting and what set's it apart from RED and Collectibles and really makes it more along the lines of that Margiela collection I mentioned is that these are based on actual garments that have been shrunk down to fit Buddy, and have now been blown up again, and instead of trying to correct they embraced the changes that came along with this "shrinking and blowing up".

And indeed ended up being very wearable...

And they did it good aswell! look at the second pair of indigo pants, how widely spaced the triple stich seam is, really cool! Id love to see some pics of it being worn.

[lilldavid]

Superbobo they used to carry the buddy lee collection at solo, perhaps they still have some of the stuff in the back, you should go and ask them

[dkatz]

I'd be quite curious to see how this business looks worn... I imagine when fresh it will look almost comical because of how loud the details are. I'd also bet, thought, that once they're well worn-in and beat up, the details will fade back a bit and just give the garments an interesting uniqueness.

Not things I'd really enjoy wearing fresh though - would need a lot of good rough lovin'.

[fardin]

it seems like a funny idea.

i checked the lee japan site, and can find the buddy lee collection onley for women so far.

just check out their site www.lee-japan.jp

lee japan also changed their archieves series, it was called originals before and vintage too , but i seems like the name is archives now since last year. they have a bottoms, tops and work section now.

some nice new stuff there too, like the UNION ALL a real classic as everyone knows.

i know it was not really accurate to put it in here.

[tweeds]

this stuff is probably a year old - at least 2 seasons ago. just went to the Lee store and had a chat with a couple of people there, they remember it but can't find the product list around anymore. but they offered to order some of the items ("they're probably around somewhere") just to have a look and feel, if i could get hold of specific codes... which is really nice of them.

sounds promising!