Welcome to London's Jeans Factory

Jeans are more than threads and rivets at Blackhorse. It’s a medium of art, a means to facilitate community, a way to build hireable skills, and so much more. 

Recently, Nick from the denim blog Stridewise visited our factory to conduct an interview with our founder Han Ates, who created Blackhorse Lane Atelier after a long career in denim led him to bringing operations to Eastern Europe and China until finally, he realized that he wanted to build his industry in his adopted city of London. 

This was a mission that had no shortage of complications, but Han’s passion for quality denim and, above all, his desire to feel connected to his family and his London community, gave him the drive he needed to accomplish the task.

Watch the interview below.

Some quotes from Han that we thought were worth emphasizing regarding our goals and our future:

"I think one of the most difficult bits for us is finding skilled workers because as a smaller production unit, a smaller workshop, we are really busy. Ever since the day we started, there was more work than we could produce, but we can’t find skilled workers here because of that expertise drain.

So we started running masterclasses here: we teach people how to make jeans. Our idea is if we teach people how to make jeans, there will be more people making jeans.

I would love to come and help anybody set up a place like this, so that we will have smaller production units in every city.

We are also going to launch our Research and Development Department around sustainable washing with the University of Arts London.

My dream for Blackhorse Lane Ateliers is to become a proper commercial business with lots of students and designers coming in and out, because when you’re in a school you learn only the theory, but you don’t really learn what happens in real life. I want to bridge that gap by opening our doors to universities here."

Read the full interview on Stridewise.