About James Dant

MISSION STATMENT

More Than Clothing

At James Dant, we aim to leave the planet a better place than when we arrived. As a clothing store, this may seem counterintuitive, at first. When you look deeper, you'll see that everything we do hinges on this principle. One could ask, why not vintage? Why not more repurposing? To us, we feel like we can make more of an impact by changing the narrative. By educating customers about the wheres, hows, and whys of global manufacturing, we feel like we're doing our part in putting an end to fast fashion. We realize this means James Dant is not built to exist forever. By getting people to "buy once and buy right" we are asking people to buy less. But, we have a steep, winding mountain to climb in changing how people buy. We feel as though we have a ton of work yet to do in this arena, and will for decades to come. We will continue to evolve and shape our role in this expanding narrative. 

As of 2021, we have been donating 1% of our Net Profit to the Environmental Defense Fund.

We are constantly in the process of converting our packaging to be as sustainable as possible. This may mean that the materials you receive have already been used to ship the package once. We also work with Eco Enclose in an effort to make 99% of our non-virgin packaging materials recyclable. 

WHERE THIS ALL STARTED

I wanted something that wasn't available.

Opening James Dant was always a selfish dream. Since I was thirteen years old, I’ve been looking for a store where I could walk in and felt like I belong. I never found that feeling in the Midwest. The lifestyle and culture that I was attracted to felt so inaccessible here, and from a pretty young age it gave me a yearning to build something better. And more importantly, build something better where I was - to bring the lifestyle that I had only been able to ogle from afar to Indianapolis. Really, just closer to me.

AND WHAT WE DO NOW

Our story and our storefront.

In 2013, I graduated from Ball State University with an award-winning business plan and a degree in entrepreneurship.  Our storefront opened in February 2014 and my retail dream became a business reality. James Dant was Indianapolis’ first non-formal wear store for men. Things have changed a bit over the last few years. As we realized that our potential for importing products from Europe and Japan was pretty unlimited, a big part of our focus has shifted online. We now serve an international community, along with our loyal local family. This has allowed us to bring even more of that culture we could never get our hands on to our home. Although we function a bit differently now (by appointment) we feel like we're able to serve both communities more fully. Our attention to detail has been allowed to shoot through the ceiling we were formally held below. We hope to continue to be a pipeline from our manufacturing family to you our customer family by bringing a bit of the world to Indianapolis. And we will continue to strive to inject as much of this artisan clothing into the world before these makers disappear, creating future vintage for generations to come.

IS A SMALL PART OF SOMETHING MUCH BIGGER

The people making our products matter. The story matters. You should know what you’re getting, why you’re getting it, and how we got it.

Nearly all of items we sell here at James Dant will last longer than the modern world of fashion promises. It’s a terrible business model, I know - especially because we have a propensity to sell in a consumer based world. There’s nothing in me that screams to do that, and why would I want to when I can literally shake the hands of the people who produce these goods all over the world. I love transferring my experiences to the store — direct experiences with the makers of our products because the story matters. The people making these products matter. Every brand and product we carry helps develop a culture of higher quality, lower-impact goods.  As a business owner I’d love to carry just the brands that sell, the brands that are familiar to the average consumer. But when it comes down to it, it’s more important for us to carry the brands that push the movement forward, and make truly amazing products that I’m excited about. It’s important to carry the brands that care. We all ultimately need brands that work hard enough to be able to take risks with their products, the brands that really live and breathe their craft and the little guys busting their ass to make it in the industry.  At a minimum, I hope our store makes you think...Think about where your products come from...Think about who made them, how they made them, and why they chose to make them that way. 

VISIT OUR STORE