This LA store is where Austin Butler and Jeremy Allen White buy their vintage French workwear

AT THE COLORADO ROCKIES versus Chicago Clubs game in May, actors Jeremy Allen White and Austin Butler were seen spending quality bro time together in the front row. What they talked about in between innings is for the internet lip-readers to decipher, but Butler’s weathered French chore coat must’ve come up in conversation. A similar faded indigo jacket has been White’s off-duty look of choice for picking out flowers at the farmer’s market. Turns out, both actors go to the same vintage store for them on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. 

Since opening its doors in January 2017, Golden Age Hollywood, with its mix of French and American vintage from the era, has become the city’s French workwear mecca. Popular amongst the kind of LA shoppers who nerd out about selvedge denim, co-founder Ludvic Orlando admits the store is responsible for dressing Angelenos in the iconic blue of his home country. 

“At that time, we observed that French customers have loved vintage American workwear for a long time – Levi’s, Carhartt, Dickies,” Orlando tells Esquire. “We figured that the French workwear heritage was unknown to American customers, so we decided to import chore jackets to test them in Los Angeles [and] they all sold in a week. We decided to import more of them and it became half of our business.”

Orlando came from managing the manufacturing and supply chain for major fashion companies, while his co-founder, Jessy Bardy, was curating vintage clothing in Marseille. With their industry know-how, they’ve continued importing deadstock pieces from rag houses and factories back in France, handpicking every work jacket and pair of pants that goes through their door. The pair, cinephiles and avid collectors, have also gained a reputation in the industry town amongst costume designers looking for a reference on French workwear.

In circulation since the Industrial Revolution, some of the earliest pieces the pair have sourced are from the 1920s made from a stiff moleskin fabric made for miners. Denim, linen, cotton blend, herringbone, and twill have also been used in these annually company-issued uniforms catering to different types of manual and machine work. What that means for the French workwear craze happening in menswear right now, overthrowing the American Carhartt Detroit jacket, is an abundant and diverse marketplace with varying levels of faded indigo. 

While always popular amongst menswear communities in Japan, France and America, Hollywood It boys like White and Butler, who have a proven acumen for vintage, have helped broaden its appeal beyond the ‘niche’ menswear circles of Pitti Uomo-goers.

Butler first walked into the store when he was in town filming Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Tracking his ascent after his breakout role earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination, the 34-year-old has worn the same chore jacket from Golden Age – featuring three patch pockets and a collar that neatly folds into notched lapels – for dog walks in Malibu to arriving at the Cannes Film Festival for Eddington. 

Orlando has worked closely with White’s stylist for the two styles The Bear actor has worn: one similar to Butler’s, and another with a shawl collar in herringbone. Working off measurements for other special orders placed by celebrity clients, Jacob Elordi has been wearing his vintage French workwear jacket poolside in Italy with swimming trunks and a baseball cap.

“We’ve rapidly become the reference for French workwear in Los Angeles,” says Orlando, “even fashion designers [come in] for inspiration.” Try as fashion brands might, what customers are after is the wear and tear of a lived-in work jacket. Sure, it may defeat the purpose of a trend founded on authenticity. But in the frays, rips, paint splashes, and sweet, sweet patina, perhaps what we’re looking for is a guide to a life well-lived.