Hard Fits: Tim Marvin & Daryn Hon
Patina Studies, Bay Area fashion culture, and the importance of intentionality
Welcome back to Hard Fits, an interview series about menswear and the men who wear it. Today’s subjects: Tim Marvin & Daryn Hon.
Tim and Daryn are the minds behind Patina Studies, a new menswear pop-up in San Francisco. The first installment took place at the beginning of September in a beautiful old building on Columbus Avenue. It was a great scene: discerning vendors, a wide variety of goods, tons of cool-looking people. For anyone familiar with the ~vibe~ of your average North Beach resident, this last point is a particular accomplishment.
Tim, Daryn, and I spoke a little bit at the event, but they were both plenty busy—turnout was way higher than expected. A few days later, we connected for a chat about the Bay Area’s less-than-inspiring fashion culture, the vision behind Patina Studies, and where it goes from here. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.
How’d you guys meet?
Tim: I worked in politics for 20 years. When I quit, I got a clothing company going, and I’d had some stuff made by Tailors’ Keep in San Francisco. And I thought I might be able to help them out with social media and marketing, kind of doing what I did in the political world for a small brand.
I got to know Daryn and Ryan [Devens, the owner] at Tailors’ Keep. Ryan and I were actually a little bit closer in the beginning, but then when Daryn and I started working together, I was just like, “Oh, well, I love this guy.” That was the inception of whatever it is that we do together. Does that sound right to you Daryn?
Daryn: I remember it a little different—I thought you and I were better friends in the beginning. [Laughs] Ryan and I had a conversation about whether I wanted Tim on just because I was fearful of possibly ruining our friendship. But yeah, we met through Tailors’ Keep, where I’ve been now for over six years. I general manage, assist with client experience, and I do fittings as well.
Meeting Tim in the midst of Covid, when people were just coming back to being around each other again, he just stood out to me. I think we both—I mean, I won’t speak for him, but I’ve been wanting to do something with Tim for a while. So when this idea came about, it was a good opportunity for our skillsets to complement each other.
“This idea” is Patina Studies, which we’ll get to in a moment. Before we do, tell me a little bit about Tailors’ Keep.
Daryn: Tailor’s Keep is a bespoke menswear atelier here in San Francisco. It was started by Ryan Devens a little over ten years ago—we actually celebrated ten years this year.
We provide true bespoke, meaning everything’s made by hand in-house, as you see in the old Savile Row houses. Patterns are drawn by hand and cut by hand, fittings are done here in San Francisco, from the muslin fitting all the way to the finished product. We also offer a high-end made-to-measure option that maintains a majority of handwork in the construction. Having the two combined allows us to provide a semi-bespoke service, meaning all the alterations, all the adjustments. We can do more intensive things like adjust the pattern here on-site, unlike other places that might have to outsource some of that work.
In the last few years, with Tim’s assistance, we’ve really pushed Tailors’ Keep into its own lane. We work in a weird market here in San Francisco where people don’t need to dress up. Our billionaires don’t wear suits or tailoring to begin with.
They should!
Daryn: For sure. [Laughs] I mean, Mark Zuckerberg’s stylist chose to put him in oversize t-shirts and necklaces.
But y’know, after Tim came onboard, he instilled in us this concept—and I think it kinda resonates with what Patina Studies is hoping to be—of recognizing that we’re this beacon for tailored menswear. Before, we did the California thing: we were kinda passive about it, hoping that things would just somehow happen, and we’d be along for the ride, instead of realizing that we had to create the wave.
More than anything, [Patina Studies] and the other events that Tailors’ Keep has done have really affirmed that there’s a community here in the Bay Area that just wants to like, hang and nerd out and shop. There’s a narrative that still exists in the Bay Area that shopping and liking clothes is a kind of faux pas.
Tim: To Daryn’s point—from Seattle to San Diego, nobody’s doing what Tailors’ Keep is doing. On the East Coast, you have J. Mueser and Drake’s and whoever, and you just don’t have that on the West Coast. That’s the niche that Tailors’ Keep is filling.
We already talked about it a little bit, so let’s just go there all the way. Patina Studies: what is it? What’s the aim? How’d you guys decide to do this?
Tim: I lived in New York for a long time. I came up in the menswear world of the early aughts, when Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean put on pop-up fleas. I went to the first couple of those, and I was just like, “this is cool.” I got more into the menswear world through Matt Hranek and his events in the city, and Jake Mueser’s events. And I was bi-coastal, back and forth from New York to San Francisco all the time, and I would come back to San Francisco, and there just wasn’t shit happening. It was a bit of a bummer.
More recently, when Stephon [Carson] and Team Cozy Boys and all those guys started putting on Alfargo’s right after the pandemic, I was like, “man, that looks so fun—somebody should really do that in San Francisco!” And Daryn and I had been kicking around ideas, and then this just made so much sense. We had a great space, we’d built a little community of people we knew could fill it out. We just knew we could nail it.
Daryn was involved more in the punk rock, DIY side back in his day, but for me, it really came from that back and forth between New York and San Francisco, where I was kinda jealous of what all my friends in New York got to do all the time. I wanted something like that here.
Daryn: What Tim really is for me, other than a great friend, is a forcing function. Sometimes I just blurt things out to him and he’s like, “let’s just do it.” Literally, he was like, “does this weekend work?” I was like, “what’re you talking about?” And he was like, “for the thing, the pop-up.” So it was an idea before it was really even an idea.
A couple years ago, I went to New York to help Tim out at a pop-up that Sprezza put on. It was my first experience at a menswear event like that in New York, and I was so blown away by the community. People showed up just to say what’s up to Tim—some people for like five or ten minutes. All they wanted to do was just say hi. Whether or not they bought something from Tim, I mean yeah, that would’ve been nice…
Tim: [Laughs]
Daryn: But even hanging out in the stairwell, and one of the owners of 3sixteen comes in because they were right around the corner, and he just wants to say what’s up to some of his friends—in San Francisco, that doesn’t even occur…
So, to Tim’s point, it was like, will people show up for this? That day, when we realized there were people waiting outside for this thing that’s never happened before, and the excitement was already percolating, it was pretty intense for me. It’s deeply humbling that people are even asking for another one.
Clearly, it seems like it struck a chord! How do you feel like it went?
Tim: I come from an organizing background, so with events like this, I’m very analytical about it, I have a structure. But I think Daryn’s right, this one felt really personal. I really wanted it to go well, and I know Daryn did too. I had a good feeling when Derek [Guy] and Peter [Zottolo] started promoting it that we were gonna have a good turn out. Everybody who was involved did a really great job promoting it, friends of ours promoted it. So it felt really good just to have people come.
And then the other goal obviously was for vendors to sell their stuff and have really cool stuff for people to buy that they might not see otherwise. And that was also successful. So top to bottom, there are things we’re gonna tweak and change and do differently, but I would say it was a huge success.
Daryn: I was the working doorman for the day, just because a friend of mine kind of bailed last minute, but it worked out perfectly. I was able to interact with people, and being out there and seeing really stylish people like, loiter on the sidewalk while there’s a bunch of people inside, and the music’s going, and all the stuff going on on that block—it was such an interesting thing to see, especially in North Beach, somewhere that’s hyper tourist-y. That area in the city isn’t necessarily known for being very stylish.
I think people in the Bay Area are kind of against this concept of wanting to be seen, y’know? Whereas in Los Angeles and New York, people are ok with that concept. Like, “yeah, I was at that party.” Even if you’re there for five minutes, you’re there and you’re looking cool, and then you dip out to the next thing. I felt that energy from some people coming to Patina Studies, and that’s ok with me. That shallowness is cool with me.
Leading up to that day, I was asking Tim what he expected, and he was like, “I dunno, like fifty to a hundred people.” And I was thinking, if only 50 people show up, and we’re open for six hours, that’s less than 10 people per hour. But I had my little Costco counter out there and I’d say, relatively conservatively, around 400 heads rolled through. That blew my mind.
Yeah, I came through maybe an hour or two into it and there were at least a hundred people there like, literally while I was there, to say nothing of the entire day.
Where’d the name come from?
Tim: All Daryn. I had so many bad ideas…
I thought you were the marketing man.
Tim: I know! I love naming stuff, and I was throwing out like—my friend Yolanda refers to French flea markets as brocantes. And I was like, oh, “Bro-cante?” Get it, like “bro?” And Daryn and my wife were both like, “I dunno dude, that’s pretty bad.”
I don’t know how he came on Patina Studies, but when he did it just landed perfectly.
Daryn: Yeah, I was very anti “Bro-cante.” [Laughs] I think a lot of what Tim was feeling—and I felt too—is this notion of “let’s name it something not in English, and that makes it sound more elegant.” But I don’t think either of us are that elegant to begin with, so it’s not representative of who we are.
For me, a lot of it stemmed from like, ok: things that patina, they age. That’s the intent, right? You want it to age in a lot of instances. A lot of people forget that. Clothing, watches, cars are meant to be used. It’s ok if they age, and in fact, if they age well, that’s a good thing. That’s your value proposition: I’m gonna spend $10,000 on this Rolex, and it’s gonna 1) appreciate in value, but also 2) look cooler over time. Same with raw denim. Very basic, 101: the more you wear it, the more you’re actually wearing it. No need to use all the laser technology to cut to [pre-distress it and] cut to the chase, because there’s no story behind it. That’s where “studies” comes from.
Another reason we chose these specific [vendors] is because they themselves commissioned the clothing, in most instances, that they sold that day. It’s not like a professional vintage seller, where they go to these warehouses and they pick and dig through…
Tim: Well, we had both.
Daryn: We had both, but [the vendors] still chose what their inventory was, and I thought that would be more special. Like Tim, what was that suit you had? The pinstripe suit?
Tim: Yeah, the Ralph Lauren.
Daryn: Yeah, that’s a great story. He went to Crowley in Dumbo originally, and he saw the suit, but it wasn’t his size. And then he found the same suit on eBay in a size he thought would fit. It ended up being a 44L, so it didn’t fit, and there was no way to make it fit, so now someone else can enjoy it.
Tim: The name, the “Patina Studies” thing, it’s a good indicator of Daryn and I’s relationship. We both give each other permission to go with an idea, but we’re also pretty good at saying no to each other.
“Bro-cante?”
Tim: Yeah, exactly. [Laughs] Like, it wasn’t a good name. And so him being like, “no dude,” but also me saying yes to Patina Studies—that was the whole thing time and time again. It just worked really quickly.
Even finding Wes [Robinson], who did the art, that was a no-brainer. I was just like, “this guy’s gonna do the art,” and Daryn was like, “yep, I trust you.”
Match made in heaven. Was the Ralph suit you were talking about—was it that brown one with the pinstripes?
Tim: Yeah.
I saw that. That was so tight, man.
Tim: If you go through Sean Crowley’s Instagram, he has it styled out. I think it’s one of the best styling’s he’s ever done. So I got obsessed with that suit, and I tried to find it. And then I found it, and it was marked in my size, and it got here, and it’s just… it’s made for somebody who’s not 5’8”. And I am definitely 5’8”.
I think about ten different people tried it on and it didn’t quite fit anybody. My Cinderella’s still out there.
That’s why you gotta keep doing these. On that note, it seems like something you guys want to keep coming back to and building on. Where do you see this going?
Tim: We’re definitely gonna do another one before Christmas. We’re really excited about it. I don’t think we have any hard plans yet about what it’ll look like, whether it’ll be in the same place or someplace new, but yeah, I’m feeling very much like another one. Maybe the week after Thanksgiving. I know Daryn’s on the same page.
We want to build it, we want to grow it, but we want to be intentional. We’re not trying to be West Coast Craft. Having curation and intentionality behind all of it is what makes it special. In a world where you have ChatGPT and [automated] everything else, people’s personal edit and personal curation really matter. I trust my taste, I trust Daryn’s taste, and what I really trust is both of us bouncing shit off each other.
I think that’s the plan going forward: keep it edited, keep it curated, keep it cool.
Daryn: One other thing too—not to keep harping on “Bro-cante”—
Tim: [Laughs]
Daryn: But I didn’t want to be so literal about what the thing was, right? I told Tim like, “I wanna leave space for something that might not be a pop-up at some point.” I want it to age—pun intended—I want it to patina well. We’re not super young men anymore. If I was in my twenties, I could probably be doing pop-ups for the next decade. But one of the intentions with the name was to see how else we can organically grow into other things. It’s more of an umbrella name for us.
The next pop-up will definitely be sooner rather than later. But we’re also trying not get overhyped. There’s a lot of people in our circle that are super excited for us and want to give us ideas. Some are great, some are not so great… [Laughs] But you mentioned it Ian—like, the idea resonated with people. And I had pretty low expectations for that, y’know? To see the diverse group of people that came out was really empowering for me.
But again, it’s a “don’t get too big for your britches” situation.
