Our Story
Our Story
I didn’t start with a brand. I started by paying attention.
In the fall of 2006, I was lying on a fire escape when I noticed a pair of Levi’s tied at the ankle and draped over the railing above me. They stayed there for months. Rain, wind, and sun slowly worked the fabric, softening it and pulling the indigo down in ways no factory wash ever could. Watching that process unfold planted an idea that stayed with me.
A few years later, I encountered raw denim for the first time at a small shop near Union Square. It was Cone Mills fabric from the White Oak Plant in Greensboro, North Carolina. Dense, rigid, unfinished. It felt like something meant to change slowly. I bought a pair and took them back to New Jersey, curious to see what would happen if I let water and time do the work.
In 2009, I left a pair of raw selvedge jeans soaking in the tide near Casino Pier. When I went to retrieve them, the conditions had turned. The current was stronger than expected, the water rough. It took several attempts to get them back. That day wasn’t about risk or bravado—it was a reminder that the sea doesn’t cooperate. You work with it, or you don’t work at all.
I didn’t realize it then, but that lesson became foundational.
Over time, working on the water—as a commercial fisherman, shellfisherman, diver, and oyster farmer—I began to understand how materials behave in real marine environments. Tides, temperature, fouling cycles, and seasonal shifts all leave their mark. Nothing happens instantly. Nothing happens the same way twice.
Years later, that understanding led me to Nantucket, where Lunasalt took its current form. Today, raw American selvedge denim is aged at sea on an active oyster farm, suspended in working waters and shaped by tidal motion, salt, sun, and duration.
We don’t force outcomes. We don’t design wear patterns. We let the fabric respond to conditions as they are.
Lunasalt is built on that approach—learning from the sea, working within its rhythms, and allowing time to do what it does best.
Worn by the Sea.
