Photography by Sumner Dilworth

Videography by Mark Kauzlarich

It’s not every day that you find a creative collaboration united so closely in vision and a shared appreciation of craftsmanship, but when Stetson and LHN Jewelry founder, Lewis Williams first met, it was clear this partnership would yield something really special. 

The Americana Collection is the first Stetson jewelry launch in generations. Featuring brass, silver, Kingman turquoise and leather, the collection is a celebration of the American spirit. Classic Western motifs and the southwest elements inspired this handwrought collection. Each piece is made by hand in Brooklyn by Williams using time-honored techniques and yielding one-of-a-kind pieces. 

We visited Lewis’ studio in Brooklyn, NY, to talk to him about the collaboration, his inspiration, and how he makes each unique piece. 

I studied jewelry and metalsmithing in London over 20 years ago. I did a course at Central Saint Martins and a degree at the London Guildhall before breaking into the industry. 

I found that there wasn’t much contemporary men’s jewelry being made which was interesting, so aiming to make something new and dynamic in this area was appealing. I am interested in many different things from tattoo culture to Maritime life as well as a whole host of different elements that inspire the work. And introducing these elements into men’s jewelry was something I aspired to do. 

I grew up in England, but was always influenced by Americana. I moved to New York City 15 years ago and have lived and worked here ever since. I am attracted to all kinds of historic elements when designing, everything from Heraldry from the Middle Ages up to Biker Gangs from the 50’s. 

The emphasis of the collections I design are centered on heritage references and trying to transform these elements into contemporary works of jewelry. 

We use traditional metalsmithing techniques to create jewelry, ancient processes such as carving into wax & casting into brass, silver, & gold. Sketches and drawings are created first, followed by making each design by hand. Sawing, engraving, hammering, & soldering the metals with precision & care, each creation is unique and made to last. LHN represents making quality, handcrafted jewelry, together with unique designs that will last the test of time and be cherished. 

Hook Leather Bracelet – Brown Leather

Stetson is an iconic name which immediately conjures up a certain classic sense of Americana. Stetson’s deep-rooted history of making quality goods over so many years is an inspiration. The heritage of the brand is something I wanted to contribute to with new creations in the same vein and aesthetic as Stetson.

Taking a dive into the 155-year-old history of Stetson was exciting, and formed the basis of what we wanted to incorporate into the designs. Touchstones of the American Southwest were influential on the collection. We incorporated Americana sensibilities, such as the longhorn, buffalo and timeless icons such as the horseshoe to give the collection a strong grounding in Stetson’s history.

photo by Brent Whaley

Horseshoe Ring

The Southwestern Cuff with Kingsman Turquoise gemstones at either end of it, is an epic piece and captures all the elements we wanted to portray in this collaboration. The cuff has a substantial width with lots of relief work in the design, but because we gave it a certain curve on the inside, it is incredibly comfortable to wear. I also love this cuff because the brush patina finish we apply to it, gives the cuff an antique feel, like old treasure. 

photo by Brent Whaley

Southwest Cuff with Turquoise Stone

By Andrew Bradbury
Photography by Chris Coe

“Only time can tell how much I love you.”

Inscribed on a simple wood watch, those loving words jarred Eric Preciado (pictured below) out of the depression that had taken over his life.

Having served honorably in the U.S. Navy as a medical corpsman, including an intense tour in support of a Marine sniper unit, Eric found himself adrift after an injury he’d received in the line of duty left him unable to work. Seeing the watch—given to him by his wife before deployment to the Middle East in 2016—prompted a search that led him to the Veterans Watchmaker Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to training veterans in the highly technical art of watchmaking and repair, free of charge.

Supported by The Bulova Stetson Fund, all programs (which include housing) are free of charge.

ERIC PRECIADO

“ONLY TIME CAN TELL HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU,” READS THE INSCRIPTION ON THE BACK OF THE WATCH GIVEN TO ERIC PRECIADO BY HIS WIFE BEFORE DEPLOYMENT TO THE MIDDLE EAST IN 2016.

“It’s a great opportunity for people who’ve been lost from the system,” says chairman Sam Cannan. Discovering that the school was to start a new session and there was one open spot, but that in order to claim it, he would have to fly across the country the very next day just for the chance to be considered…well, Eric did just that. Booking a plane ticket with $900 in savings—money reserved for Christmas with the family—Eric took a chance on himself, showed up, and met a surprised and duly impressed Cannan.

SWIPE LEFT FOR SLIDESHOW

Now thriving, Eric is mastering a highly technical and unforgiving art on a minute scale few of us could imagine. At the end of his first year, he says working with other veterans is “like a brotherhood.” He even managed to get his ever-supportive wife to go along with the whole “take all the Christmas money and fly across the country to see a program he just saw on the internet” thing. Which, in the end, turned out to be a sort of holiday miracle. Or just a case of perfect timing.

Of course, as incredible as Eric’s story is, he is just one of the many veterans who have enjoyed access to education, training, and especially, fellowship that is fostered daily by the Veterans Watchmaker Initiative. The idea behind the school dates back to 1945 as soldiers were returning from WWII. Arde Bulova, heir to the Bulova watchmaking fortune, created the tuition-free Joseph Bulova Watchmaking School in honor of his father, to teach disabled servicemen the skills of watchmaking “under the most expert supervision and with an all-inclusive curriculum in a pleasant environment where similar interests and problems developed a close-knit, affable group of men working toward common goals.”

FELLOW U.S. VETERANS & STUDENTS CHRIS TULLOS (LEFT) & BEN HERRING (RIGHT).

Though the Bulova school—which featured an early use of wheelchair ramps in its design—closed in 1993, its core ideals eventually evolved into the Veterans Watchmaker initiative, which today exists as just that: a pleasant environment where a close-knit, affable group of men work toward common goals. No small thing. The focused tasks, guided instruction, and regular schedule are well-suited to men with military experience. At the same time, the steady hum of tools and daily banter allows a decompression from that life into the civilian world. For Eric, it provided him the push he needed to talk to someone about some of his more traumatic experiences.

The added benefit, of course, is that the program is creating a new generation of craftspeople who are receiving knowledge that is in danger of being lost. Watchmaking isn’t just an employable skill, it’s a legitimately beautiful art. It’s one thing to hear Eric talk about how much the program has been a blessing in his life, but another to hear him describe how he worked the design of a columbine—the state flower of his home in Colorado—into an escapement platform for a clock.

For his part, Eric still has some disbelief at the way the program caters to the needs, large and small, of the veterans. But of course, according to Cannan, that’s by design. “Arde Bulova’s original mission was to serve those who have served us, and that’s what we do.”

 ERIC PRECIADO INSPECTS WATCH COMPONENTS DURING HIS TRAINING COURSE AT THE VETERANS WATCHMAKER INITIATIVE IN NOVEMBER 2022.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BULOVA STETSON FUND

Meet the young couple behind Vermont’s Big Picture Farm, where the air is clean, the homemade caramels are delicious—and the goats are the greatest of all time.

By Andrew Paine Bradbury
Photography by Maaike Bernstrom

We all dream about it. Living a less connected, more grounded, so-called “simpler” life. Buy a farm, raise some kids and some animals, and just … be.

For Louisa Conrad and Lucas Farrell, the owners of Big Picture Farm in Townshend, Vermont, it was a dream achieved through hard work, ingenuity, and a little bit of luck. The couple, both 40 years old, originally met at Middlebury College, and after each attended grad school on the West Coast, Louisa says, “Vermont was the only place we could agree to come back to.”

LUCAS (LEFT)) & LOUISA (RIGHT), OWNERS OF BIG PICTURE FARM. LUCAS WEARS THE LIMESTONE OUTDOOR HAT, AND LOUISA WEARS THE ANDROMEDA VENTED STRAW—COMING SUMMER 2022.

As artists and writers, the couple found that “all of the interesting things were happening at the intersection of agriculture and art in Vermont.” After a cheesemaking apprenticeship, they both “just fell in love with the goats.” Seeking to work with the animals in a sustainable way—both environmentally and financially—they eventually found work on another farm that would let them raise four goats of their own.

Realizing the area was already filled with talented cheesemakers, they focused their efforts and found their niche as confectioners, selling their goat’s milk caramels under the name Big Picture Farm—a picture that 10 years later would be much bigger than they could’ve imagined.

The caramels themselves were a hit. “The secret ingredient is 100% the milk that we use from our goats that are extremely spoiled,” Louisa says. But it is the couple’s artistic sensibilities, love of storytelling, and social media savviness that have elevated their success. The spoiling of the goats is chronicled on their Instagram, the products they sell are as meticulously designed as a Wes Anderson film, and their website features Farrell’s beautiful (and heartbreaking) tributes to animals they’ve lost. But it was a while before Big Picture became a full, actual farm—one that was truly their own. The couple bought the pastoral property from the older farm owners over seven years, taking out loans as necessary and eventually moving into the nine-bedroom farmhouse in 2017.

“The stories behind what’s going to happen in American agriculture are largely dependent on how these transitions go from all of the older farmers to the next generation,” Louisa says, noting how lucky they were with their former landlords. “You’re investing so much blood and sweat and finances into the land. So if the land’s not yours, it’s a harder prospect to pull off.”

Indeed, it’s a very particular American way of life that won’t sustain unless some young families continue to work family farms and older farm owners continue to provide a workable way to pass the land on.

LOUISA WEARS THE STETSON HELENA STRAW FEDORA, LONG-SLEEVED EMBROIDERED BLOUSE, AND 816 CLASSIC BOOT CUT JEANS IN DARK WASH IN HER GARDEN AT BIG PICTURE FARM.

Raising their two young children (along with a herd of goats, 8 cats, 2 dogs, 30 hens, and a few pigs) in such a rural environment is not without challenges. “For the kids, it can be lonelier, living so far out. It’s harder to set up play dates, but on the flip side there are lots of snails and slugs … and my daughter is really into slugs and snails and bugs and finding homes for them. She wants to be a scientist,” Louisa says. “But I think there is a sense of magic out here that is possible.”

“Living with the animals is very grounding,” she continued, “they’re not aware of the larger world at play. They’re going from one day to the next. It forces you to be more present.”

Learn more about Big Picture Farms, their goats, homemade products, and ways that you can visit the farm (including some pretty amazing overnight rental options) on their website: bigpicturefarm.com

Andrew Paine Bradbury is a writer and musician based in New York City.

SHOP STETSON.COM

MEN’S APPAREL

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WOMEN’S APPAREL

Meet the Stewart family. Their passion for food security and diversity in agriculture led them to Douglas, Arizona where they are financing a sustainable farming project to make good, clean food more accessible. 
Photography by Ivan McClellan.

Rachel and James Stewart lived a busy life in the city. James worked two jobs seven days a week and would find a few hours a day to train as a bodybuilder.

Rachael taught their 4 kids and worked as a personal trainer.

When the pandemic hit, everything changed. Work dried up, and the Stewarts had to change their living situation. Buying a house wasn’t feasible, and the kids needed space to run around.

The one thing they are most passionate about is good, clean, and natural food and access to it was becoming increasingly more difficult. They found land in southern Arizona that was affordable and made a leap of faith to start their own organic beef, pork, and poultry ranch in the desert. “We wanted to be able to give the kids something for their future. Giving them financial security and a trade so they don’t get caught up in the debt cycle is important to us.” Neither of them had any experience ranching or farming aside from a small garden they had in the city and Rachel’s one year of 4H in high school. They built a small adobe-style house, put up fences, and pens and got to work raising chickens, ducks, pigs, turkeys, goats, and steers.

But soon, neighbors from miles around came to the ranch to introduce themselves and pitch in. The Stewart ranch has been a unifying factor for the community. “It’s a barter system out here. Everybody has something that somebody else doesn’t have.” From sharing knowledge about raising crops and animals to pitch in on a community backhoe, they are all working together to build a life for themselves and succeed for the positive.

They traded in creature comforts for fresh air and space, and their 4 kids James, Zinaye, Zenaya, and Javon, are thriving in their new environment. “They’re thinking more critically and strategically and doing different things every day. They’re not thinking outside of the box, there is no box, and everything they do in life is learning.” James and Rachel are learning as well, oftentimes from the kids. They’ve accomplished a lot in a short amount of time but still have a long way to go. Their vision is to create a sustainable framework for other black and brown ranchers to follow and sell healthy food locally and eventually nationally.

Handweaver Justin Squizzero challenges modern definitions of progress by creating functional textiles that celebrate the natural world and the dignity of human labor.

By Mark Kauzlarich

The wood creaks under the feet as Justin Squizzero makes his way up the stairs to the garret, the unfinished attic, of the 210 year old farmhouse he shares with his husband Andrew. The temperature outside in their small corner of rural Vermont barely reached 5 degrees as he makes his short commute to the space where he’s dedicated himself to resurrecting a piece of American history through practicing a nearly lost art. Justin reaches the garret, uninsulated from the harsh weather outside, and his breath hangs in the air 40 degree air as he sits down at a loom, one that is potentially a century older than the house, to weave intricately detailed coverlets that have not been made for over 180 years.

In October of 2015 Justin Squizzero first set foot on the farm built by William Burroughs circa 1810, lived on by generations of just two families, and offered for sale for the first time in a century. The farm sits up in the hills of Newbury, Vermont, a town on the banks of the Connecticut River, one hundred miles north of the Massachusetts border. It was the kind of relic one used to find frequently in the North Country, but like the elm and mountain lion these places have become rarities in recent times, endangered species in their natural habitat. By some luck and quiet determination of a few sporadic caretakers this house survived, despite sitting vacant since 1989.

A weaver by training, trade, and passion since he was around 16 years old, it was fate when Squizzero, now 33, found an entire loom sitting in the garret (unfinished attic) of the house, a final nod that he had found a place that was both special on its own, but even more special to him. It was a perfect fit regardless; Justin grew up the son of historical reenactors and knew the inside and out of living in such an old home, from the lack of insulation and wood furnace and stove to the temperamental water from the stream up the road, water they were lucky to have. However, it still required extensive work to get to this place livable after sitting largely untouched for decades. It’s framework underneath was rotting, the shingles blew off the roof with every gust of wind, sounding blown snow, and layers of now weathered and stained wallpaper hid even more layers beneath.

Even now the house is relatively spartan but immensely charming, bright on the outside and homey and historic on the inside. It sticks out from the road as you come down the hill, welcoming, and at night the smoke from the stacks and few lights in the windows are a beacon to weary travelers in the snow. Now filled with three operational looms in addition to the one found in the garret the farm, which was brought back to life by Justin, is also where he weaves fabrics that bring old furniture back to life, serves as the foundation for clothing from hundreds of years ago, and creates the figured coverlets that few can make. With a few sheep, the start of a flock that will someday provide wool for his weaving, a pig, their dogs, and a cat that came with the house (their landlord, he says), they have turned this place into a home. But the largest piece of the puzzle, a rare Jacquard head for a loom, arrived in 2019 and helped Justin resurrect the intricate work for which he’s become known.

In 1804 a Lyon silk weaver named Joseph Marie Jacquard perfected a century of technological development with a device that utilized punch cards to create pictorial designs in woven cloth. A series of vertical hooks inside the cast iron machine “read” these cards and lift certain threads allowing him to create figured patterns that in some cases likely had not come off a loom since 1860. In function, it’s essentially the earliest manufactured computer. Justin’s rare surviving example of a Jacquard loom head dates from the 1860s, likely the oldest operating machine privately owned in North America. It was purchased by Roy Orr, a weaver from Ohio, (who had bought it from a famed weaver in Scotland) and who sold it with the punch cards to create Justin’s first coverlets. The head sits on a loom that is much older, made between 1650 and 1750, and together they are a perfect match.

On this cold February day in Newbury, VT, Justin was starting something special. He took a worn pair of shears off his work bench and slowly cut down the line of fabric taught across the loom. It was the last of the most recent run of coverlets titled “Campbell’s Rose and Stars”. A coverlet like this, big enough for a queen bed, would take around five days of dedicated effort sitting at the sometimes cantankerous and fickle loom, tending to the mechanical intricacies and issues that come up along the way. What came next was the culmination of a year of work. Justin placed the newest cards over the Jacquard head. The holes punched looked like an oversized paper ballot or the instructions for an antique player piano printed on a heavy cardstock, covered in wax to protect them from the mechanical process, and it was hard to see how these would translate to anything as intricate as what would come next. Justin had closely studied images of a pattern not made since 1840, one with few surviving examples, and reconstructed the pattern by hand, a meticulous process. Then he and Andrew worked to punch the cards before lacing them together with thread. Finally, after a year of work, Justin threw the shuttle across the loom for the first time, operating the loom and the head with worn, rough-hewn wood treadles suspended above the worn wood floors and attached by thick twine to the loom. The jarring bang of both the Jacquard head and the old, massive loom became an unhurried, methodical rhythm. Slowly, over the course of a half an hour, the design’s words became readable on the coverlet. It’s a motto that Justin has held dear to his heart and one that he’s excited to start seeing again and again as he weaves.

For Brett and Leah, being born to life on the range is a commitment to the generations of ranching families that came before them. A commitment they are happy to fulfill.

Photography by Marisa Anderson

Brett Williams is a 25 year old bareback rider. He started on his first bucking horse at 16 and grew up riding steers.

He later rode in the amateur and pro circuits across Canada and the United States.

Currently while on hiatus due to covid, he’s been enjoying the time at home working with his horses and cows.

Raising cows goes all the way back to his great grandfather. The passion for livestock and agriculture has always been a big part of his life. Even when life has taken Brett in different directions, he always finds his way back to the ranch.

Leah Campbell grew up on the back of a horse. Her mother and grandmother were huge influences in her passion for horses. Her grandmother handed down their family brand “Quarter Circle Lazy Left M L” and she looks forward to growing her own heard with this brand on their hip.

She finds herself following in their footsteps riding in the mountains with friends and family often, just as they did- checking cows in the forestry before she was born.

Her passion for rodeo and working with young horses started when she was a young teen and currently competes on the armature pro-circuits working towards running Pro. After high school Leah received her Equine Sports Therapy certification and now work at a Equine Veterinarian Clinic that specializes is performance horses.