Dedicated to denim

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This article was published 02/11/2014 (3989 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When people discuss Sargent Blue Jeans, they almost always bring up the store’s sales team — a trio of women with the innate ability to size customers up on sight, not unlike those carnival barkers at the Red River Ex who guess your age and weight as you stroll past with a bag of mini-doughnuts.

Kathy Malandrakis, 70, is the longest-serving member of the jean genies. She’s been working at Sargent Blue Jeans since it opened 32 years ago and can’t recall the last time she had to reach for a tape measure. Imagine, then, her reaction a while back when a shopper swore his waist size was 36 inches, after she pegged him for a 42.

“You try to be diplomatic when something like that happens by saying things like, ‘Every make fits a bit differently,’ or ‘Some jeans stretch more than others.’ But there was no convincing this guy,” Malandrakis says. “So finally, I said, ‘Tell you what: Go into the changing room with the 36 and the 42, and if the 36 fits, they’re on me.’ “

Asked who won the bet, Malandrakis smiles and replies, “Who do you think?”

— — —

Steve Damianakos opened Sargent Blue Jeans in a converted candy store at 1136 Sargent Ave. in 1982. Family friend Sam Tassi bought the business from Damianakos in 2004, by which time it had quadrupled in size to 3,400 square feet. Mohamed El Tassi, Tassi’s brother-in-law, was 16 when he started working there on weekends, and 17 when he became co-owner in 2004.

“I wasn’t even born when this place first opened, so if you’re asking me about the old days, most of what I know comes from people who’ve been shopping here since Day 1,” says El Tassi, whose father, Albert El Tassi, is the owner and CEO of Peerless Garments.

“You’d be amazed how many times people who used to live in Winnipeg come here straight from the airport — or on their way to.

“Last week a guy from Calgary came running in an hour or so before his flight; he purposely left room in his suitcase, he told us, so he could buy five pairs of jeans and be good to go till the next time he was in town.’ “

Recently, El Tassi was driving past one of his favourite takeout joints, the Dairi-Wip Drive-In on Marion Street. He noticed a sign in a lot adjacent to the joint, announcing the pending arrival of a big-name burger chain. Sounds familiar, he thought.

“Competition in the clothing business is fierce — these days it seems like there’s a new store coming to town every other week,” El Tassi says. “But what I’ve noticed is that for the first two or three months, everybody’s checking out the new place — almost like they have to get it out of their system. But after they realize not all of these places are the wonderlands they’re made out to be, they end up coming back to the local, independently owned spots.”

Don’t let the wholesale look of the place fool you. Sargent Blue Jeans stocks more than 12,000 pairs of jeans, including most of the top brands, such as Sean Jean, Black Bull and Ecko. The store sells more Silver Jeans than any other retailer in the province and houses the largest selection of Dickies apparel in central Canada. Burton Cummings is a regular, El Tassi says. So are film crews on the hunt for hard-to-find sizes and styles.

Because El Tassi spends a good chunk of his day researching the latest trends and fads, we figured he’d be the perfect person to ask about one of life’s great mysteries: How do those low, low-rise jeans that are all the rage nowadays stay up, exactly?

“I know, eh? I don’t get it either,” El Tassi says with a laugh. “Just before you got here, I told my nephew, who’s on cash, ‘Pull your pants up, the Free Press is coming.’ And it’s not just the guys. Girls will buy these skinny, tight jeans and wear them really low, to the point they have trouble walking. To me it looks very uncomfortable, but who am I to judge?”

In May, Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., created a bit of a stir when he said the one-year-old pair of jeans he was sporting that day had “yet to see a washing machine.” When his interviewer questioned him further, asking how often people should launder their favourite jeans, he responded, “Never.”

“I believe it,” El Tassi says. “Some people really, really, really take their jeans seriously, and instead of washing them, they put them in the freezer.”

Wait a sec. It sounded like he said people throw their pants in the freezer.

“Yes, exactly right. Apparently, the cold kills germs as good as a washing machine does — and by ‘washing’ them that way, the jeans never lose their colour.”

El Tassi and his brother-in-law, who will operate a seasonal annex on Selkirk Avenue this holiday season, never thought about changing the West End institution’s name after taking over. And while one might think the moniker is pretty self-explanatory, that’s not always the case.

“Sometimes I’m out for the night and a person will ask where I work,” says El Tassi. “After I say Sargent Blue Jeans they’ll go, ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve been there before — it’s that place on Ellice, right?’

“I go, ‘No, you’re probably thinking of Ellice Blue Jeans,’ and leave it at that.”

“That’s a good question,” Mohamed El Tassi says when asked if he can remember the last time he didn’t show up somewhere in a pair of jeans. “Even when I go to functions like charity dinners, I have trouble not wearing (jeans).

“My dad wants to kill me when I show up at weddings in jeans and a blazer, but hey, I’m around jeans all day. I feel bad if I don’t represent.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca