Our Story

The Founder’s Journey

Sergei Zolotariov

 

 

Roots in the Far North

My story begins on December 1, 1962, in Kuibyshev, Soviet Union. My father served in the Soviet Interior Ministry (MVD) successor forces, and my mother was an economist. For ten years of my youth, my father’s work moved us 300 kilometers north of Magadan, Siberia to a "jail town" with no name just a number a few kilometers from Talaya. It was a world born out of the wilderness, consisting only of the prison, a small store-club and the personnel quarters.

Living in that isolation for a decade shaped my understanding of utility and resilience long before I ever picked up a needle.

 

 

Architecture, Sanitation, and the Military

My true ambition was architecture, but I was denied entry into the academy due to political complications surrounding my father’s position. Instead, I was funneled into studying  Plumbing Faculty, a specialty I detested. After one year, I quit. To avoid the standard two-year army draft, I made a strategic move: I enrolled in a 4 years military engineering college.

 

I graduated as a civil engineer and a Lieutenant, trained to build military airports and shelters. However, my heart was in deconstruction. II spent my spare time taking apart rugged military uniforms and reimagining their heavy wools and cottons into wearable forms of something entirely new.

 

The Escape and the Salzburg Years

By the mid-1980s, I was designing and sewing parachute pants and jackets,  fake Adidas and selling them locally, earning a month’s military salary in two days. As the system transitioned toward a dangerous era of racketeering, I knew I had to leave. This was an illegal escape; I told no one except my ex-wife, leaving my family and my son behind.

 

I made my way to Austria, where I spent over a year waiting for political asylum. During this period, I established myself making high-end sportswear and custom ski outfits for the fashion crowd in Salzburg. My craftsmanship was so well-regarded that I was offered a prestigious commission to design costumes for the Salzburg Mozart Festival. I ultimately declined this to pursue my move to the United States, arriving in New York City in 1990.

 

The NYC Design Years: Harms USA and Civil Defense

In New York, I worked my way up from a dishwasher at JFK to the high-end floors of Matsuda and Yohji Yamamoto boutiques.

During this period, I launched my own creative labels:

• Harms USA: Named after the Russian absurdist writer Daniil Kharms, this line featured hats and accessories that were sold at Barneys NY and in Japan. My business partner for the brand was the owner of Triple Five Soul, Troy Morehouse.

• Civil Defense: Inspired by the Siberian punk band Grazhdanskaya Oborona, this label featured printed T-shirts sold at the cult Japanese boutique Zaka on Grand Street in Chinatown, NYC.

 

While building these brands, I spent over ten years in the heart of the New York fashion industry, handling design and graphics for four different mass-market streetwear labels. This decade gave me the technical mastery of global production, but it also solidified my desire for something more authentic.

Today: Quality Without Compromise

In early 2000s, when American denim production moved overseas, I refused to follow. I began making my own jeans locally, and officially trademarked my business in 2008. By late 2010, I left the corporate world to focus entirely on my own vision.

 

 

Now in my 60s, I operate a brand built on "serious fun" and uncompromising quality. 

 

Today, most  of my business serves the Japanese market.

 

I balance my work as a designer with background acting in films and a lifelong passion for collecting antiques, fine art and American vintage.

 My work is the culmination of a life lived on my own terms.