The Designer
Monique Buzy-Pucheu designs and constructs the collection at her residence, Dorwin Hill Farm in New Milford, Connecticut USA. She also lives in NYC.
Monique worked in Denim Design, Product Development and Merchandising for Ralph Lauren, Diesel and Calvin Klein before starting her consulting company BuckleBack Design
Inc., in 1998.
An avid collector of vintage, she has over 450 pieces of vintage circa 1870-2000, many of them rare. This collection can be found on her Buckle Back Archive website. She rents these gems to her designer friends and colleagues.
The Collection
The collection is made up of curated vintage denim, utility, military, knits, sweats and accessories. The vintage items range from 1950’s to early 2000’s. The garments are reworked,
tailored and up cycled using vintage fabrics and trim. Each piece is unique.
The History
The history of Buz Jones is this.
In 1998 Buzy-Pucheu created a denim collection called Buz Jones. The name paid homage to her brother’s nickname “Buzz” and the added last name, Jones. As much as she loved her unique French last name, she wanted to also honor her first generation American roots and what’s more American than Jones?
The Buz Jones collection was conventionally produced in Los Angeles, Mississippi and Turkey, yet the designs were always vintage inspired for the fit, fabric, details and wash. The collection was sold in major US stores including Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Fred Segal many more specialty stores. In London to Selfridge’s and Brown Focus and in Japan to Ships, Barneys Japan, American Rag and Beams.
After 7 years in business she decided to concentrate on her thriving consulting business, which she continues today. Clients include Ralph Lauren, Alexander Wang, J Crew, Wrangler, Tommy Hilfiger, Uniqlo, Gap, Tory Burch, Marithe et Francois Girbaud just to name a few. Check it out at Buckleback Design Inc.
The Process
In 2023 Buzy-Pucheu wanted to rekindle the dormant brand but did not want to produce it in a conventional way. She felt the market was looking for one of kind pieces with unique character and identity, and stand apart from mass -produced items. Her passion for environmental issues inspired her to produce a collection without the harmful wastage and excess inevitable in conventional production.
So, Buzy Pucheu started collecting vintage pieces for this project which would be separate from her BucleBack Archive. Buzy-Pucheu is inspired in a different way by each piece. She uses vintage Liberty of London prints for labels, 1940’s indigo hickory striped aprons for trims and patches, vintage buttons for replacement buttons, natural indigo dye and water-based inks. She is also incorporating the vintage art of cyanotype printing on some pieces.
Lastly each garment is branded with the snakey logo which was the original Logo from the Buz Jones collection, now reimagined and deconstructed.
During the years when most of her career was spent travelling to garment factories, both domestically and internationally, it was a trip to Opp Alabama where she went to the Rattlesnake Rodeo and the inspiration for Snakey was born.
