17 North Beach Street
Nantucket, MA 02554
(508) 228-1515
WORN BY THE SEA
Lunasalt brings the ocean to your wardrobe through denim.
In September, when everyone else was hunkering down for the much anticipated wrath of Hurricane Lee, Terry Ruggiero had something else top of mind: jeans. More specifically, placing selvage (also spelled selvedge) denim for his brand, Lunasalt, into oyster cages to wash within the waves.
It’s this process that inspired the brand eight years ago when the New Jersey native turned Nantucket resident was on what seemed to be an endless search for durable jeans. “I just wanted to find a pair of jeans that could last and still look good. And so I came across the selvage denim,” he says. This raw/unwashed denim has finished edges that prevent it from fraying and unraveling, plus it’s more sustainable for the planet by saving water and reducing the amount of chemicals used in the modern manufacturing process. In all, it’s considered the gold standard. The one downside? It’s extremely stiff and needs to be worn in—but that’s where Ruggiero’s ocean washing comes into play.
Having lived on the water all his life, Ruggiero realized that the combination of the salt, the movement of the ocean and the sun helped to speed up the process. “It just hit me to tie the jeans to the pier—just let the waves break them in,” he explains, comparing the method to wiping out when surfing, which feels similar to the tumbling in a washing machine.
After moving to Nantucket full time in 2015 to help open a bar, Ruggiero stopped tying the jeans to piers and began washing them in oyster cages thanks to Matt Herr of Grey Lady Oysters. “The owner and the chef loved his oysters so much, but he didn’t have any help,” the bartender explains. “They asked me if I wanted to go out and help him grow oysters during the day. After that first day of going out and seeing the oyster cages and that whole world, I just knew that this is where the jeans needed to happen.”
Luckily for Ruggiero, not only was Herr willing to let him use the extra cages, but according to the oyster farmer’s marine biologist wife, washing the jeans also wouldn’t lead to any water pollution. “We actually learned that [salt water] sets the indigo,” Ruggiero says. “If you were to put jeans in regular freshwater, the water would turn blue, but with saltwater, [the color] just stays in there.
Soaking the jeans in the waves has another benefit—it leaves an unique pattern on each and every pair. “They’re in the sun and they’re getting worn by waves and rubbing against the cage…it makes these very high contrast patterns,” Ruggiero says. Depending on the wash cycle, which he marks in length by lunar phases—quarter moon (eight days), half moon (two weeks), whole moon (28 days) and double moon (56 days)—the jeans could look more distressed or range from darker to lighter hues. The result can also depend on the time of year. Ruggiero explains, “There’s a number of factors, water temperature being one of them. The warmer it is, the more stuff that’s floating around in the water like tunicate and barnacle and jingle shells. They’re all spawning and attaching themselves as a substrate.” Other factors include sunlight, which leads to darker washes (fall and winter) versus the lighter fades seen in the summer. He adds, “Typically per collection, I won’t do any more than 50 at a time.”
Thus far, Ruggiero has ventured past the traditional jean and into jackets, as well as vintage French-striped shirts made from heavy cotton. Soon, two women’s styles and additional men’s styles will debut.
They can all be found on his website, lunasaltdenim.com, along with off-island locations on Martha’s Vineyard, in Hudson, New York, and Brooklyn, New York, but those in the know can set up private fitting appointments at Nantucket’s Veronica Beard location.
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