PortraitMany celebrities, politicians and American actors don the shirts of this label born in Colorado sixty years ago. A compendium of the Far West imagination, the brand remains relatively unknown in France.
In November, when documentary producer Myriam Weil stumbled upon the photo of Joe Biden chosen by Paris Match to make its cover on “The new face of America”, it is the denim shirt which holds its attention. The 46e President-elect of the United States poses, smiling and winking, arms crossed, sleeves rolled up, in a cowboy shirt. Myriam Weil believes she recognizes a model signed Rockmount Ranch Wear, a brand unknown in France but cult in the United States.
The details, signature of the label, are familiar to him: shape of sawtooth pockets, snaps, yoke on the shoulders in the shape of an inverted peak. It turns out that the shirt worn by Biden in this photograph signed Mario Sorrenti is a Levi’s “photoshopped”: the red label on the pocket has been removed.
Even the boss of Rockmount is in doubt: “Almost everyone in the fashion industry attributes the jagged design to Rockmount. We are the oldest western shirt manufacturer and this shirt design is the oldest design in America. The version that Biden wears is similar to many models we have created in the past. But we can’t be 100% sure it’s one of us. “
“A Rockmount shirt in the United States is in a way the equivalent of Camembert in France. »Myriam Weil, member of the founder’s family
Condensed from the Wild West to caricature, well known for his looks from farmers and its hats with raised brim, Rockmount Ranch Wear, founded in Denver in 1946 by a certain Jack Weil, is an institution on the other side of the Atlantic. A thousand times copied. Never equaled? “A Rockmount shirt in the United States is in a way the equivalent of Camembert in France”, summarizes Myriam Weil, a very distant cousin of Steve Weil, the founder’s grandson, who is now at the head of the company. Recently, she traced the trace of the Weil family to Alsace, discovering that Jack Weil’s father, Abraham, a Jewish emigrant to the United States at the end of the 19th century.e century, was from the region.
If the company still fascinates today, it is because it ticks all the boxes of the pure American saga: a cult product, a family heritage, a visionary and charismatic founder, all sprinkled with Hollywood cinema and Politics.
The “Henry Ford of the Shirt”
When Jack Weil, nicknamed “Papa Jack” and self-promoted “Henry Ford of the Shirt,” he came up with the idea of creating a comfortable and sturdy shirt to dress the local farmers and cowboys. He equips it with snaps so that we can put it on quickly and well and so that the pockets – sawtooth, therefore – remain closed.
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