Not a day goes by in the CITY office where at least one member of the staff isn't wearing a pair of Cheap Mondays. So imagine our excitement when Cheap Monday's highly customized line of distressed denim hit New York on March 17 -- simultaneously launching the new store location for street-chic boutique, Inven.tory (237 Lafayette St.). After touring Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, and London, the brand's design team came to New York with 50 pairs of jeans (hand numbered from 200 to 250) selling for $70 a pop. The designers were eager to explain how each pair takes roughly half a day's work with patching, sewing, and punching treatments, which served as a reminder of the pride involved with wearing handmade products.

With pieces like Levi's Capital E line (seen on the cover of CITY's Spring Fashion issue), we feel it's a great time to get back to basics and place value on wearing handmade, humble goods. Call us suckers for limited-editions and personalized detailing -- if you must.