very interesting read.
I have always struggled with jeans due to being 6'5" and around the 36/38 waist (depending on breakfast & brand of jean!) also have big footballers thighs but calves of a supermodel!
often hit Selfridges and try on about 20 pairs until i find a pair with a decent fit and then cry with joy. will have to hit a couple of the specialist stores to get some personal service as the current trending for skinnier fit just depresses me and some I can't even get my leg in, let alone try and do up.
off to London for a day out next couple of weeks for me, sod's law the Mrs has gone today and i couldn't be arsed. also trying not to wash a couple of pairs until Thursday when i ended up wearing most of a portion of ribs and the associated sauce in my lap; no amount of freezing was preventing them from going in the wash.
After trying out G star, Diesels, and Gap have gone back to levis. Bought two pairs after a 12 year gap of buying my last pair. Very pleased.
After years with levis and diesel, I now prefer Jack&Jones AT 529. Perfect straight/slim fit with classy amount of fade; lasered apparently. Check out Hawkdale belts too.. bargain handmade leather product.
Quite recently got into selvedge jeans. Brands which I can recommend and have also been mentioned are Edwin and A.P.C. Very impressed with the A.P.C's. However, as I've got 2 young (messy) kids and not wanting to wash them within a decent time frame, also shelled out on a cheaper pair of selvedge which I can also recommend...Unbranded jeans. Get excellent reviews for the money (£65) and to be honest don't see much difference from the A.P.C jeans. The ones I got are 14oz but they also do a 21oz. Great way of getting into selvedge / raw jeans. Can't go wrong at that price point.
Little info on ONI Denim, had a few different jeans and all good at every price point but the real nerd denim is here its as much about how as what
Talking about Oni Denim…
RIAC
My ONI Secret Denim are getting there slowly, first picture at End Jan and another 2 from today, still need the rest of the year before I think about a wash or rinse
RIAC
??
Is a soak, simply the submersion of the jeans in a bath or similar to remove some of the dye and a wash involves the use of some sort of detergent?
I am on my second pair of Hiut's and they are fantastically constructed jeans.
SlimR's are my cut of choice but these have just been released...
http://hiutdenim.co.uk/products/selvedge-denim-skinr
Got to be worth a try.
Pitch
Right, I've resisted long enough. My Nudie Steady Eddie are 6 weeks short of a year old and I'm going to have to wash them for the first time.
I love them, they're they comfiest jeans ever, but they're starting to smell.
I'm gutted to be honest as I've put a lot of effort into them looking this grubby.
So I'm going for a 30 degree wash with a small amount of detergent - unless anyone wants to advise me of a better way?
Wish me luck.
Febreze, not washing.
Let's see a photo of the fades.
I like the idea of quality denim and I get that traditional fashion brands probably aren't the best at it - but...
Do they all fade like that? I'd like a pair that would stay the same colour as when I bought them. I particularly don't like the wallet marks you seem to get in them. Are there any brands that don't fade?
It's impossible for jeans not to fade as they're a dyed garment. When you wash them a proportion of the dye will wash out, hence the fade. If you don't wash them you'll gradually get crease and wear marks as the dye naturally comes out onto your hands, other garments, furniture etc.
For minimum fade you're best buying the darkest indigo you can get and leaving at least a year between each wash to minimise fade. I have another pair of Nudie Raw Indigo Steady Eddie that I've had for a year that haven't been washed yet and they've still got their original colour and haven't got any crease or wear marks. Those ones might go two years between washes
You'd be a very rich man if you could invent the fade-less denims.
I may be wrong but surely if you wash a pair of raw denim jeans they are no longer raw. So if you don't want them to fade wash or soak them immediately with cold water to set the dye, adding white vinegar also helps, apparently.
Did anyone see the C4 doc last night:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/t...mand/60800-002
I just caught part of it and there was a feature on denim. One section involved the presenter buying half a dozen pairs of jeans with RRPs ranging from £10 to £200. They brought them to some tailor in London and asked him to rank them (blind to the price) in order of quality of construction and fabric quality. The tailor got them mostly right until he came to the top end of the price range - he thought the best pair was a pair that cost £45.
Another but involved a visit to a jeans mega-factory in Turkey that makes jeans for retailers at all price levels. The cost of the cotton varies between about £3 per pair of jeans to, at most, about £8. They all cost around the same to make (less than £10), with those with fancy finishes and fake holes (fades made with sandpaper, holes cut by laser) being at the higher end.
Much tittering from the factory rep when she was told that some of what they produce retails for the £200 mark.
I guess a lot of the Tellasons (US made I think) and Japanese-derived selvedge denim involves slightly higher costs but still.
However I suspect such margins are typical in the clothing business and it's probably even more so when manufacturing occurs in China.
That's true of fashion brands that you'd find in typical non-specialist retail outlets.
No surprise that that program found little correlation between cost and quality in the mass-market segment, though; the vast majority of commonly-available denim is indeed cheaply made, no matter whose label is on it.
Specialist manufacturers do have higher costs. The difference is significant, as they use superior materials and involve a lot more hands-on techniques — and it's not sweatshop labour. High-grade traditionally-produced Japanese, UK and American denim is manufactured on shuttle looms that are more expensive to operate than the common projectile loom.
It's not necessary to spend a huge amount to get quality denim, either. Check out Naked & Famous, which is made in Canada from good Japanese fabric, and represents excellent value for money in my opinion. Not only does it look better, but the good stuff also lasts much longer, so I find it's cheaper in the long run, just like most quality items.
Buy less and buy better.
Agreed. Decent selvedge doesn't have to be expensive....
The Unbranded Brand for example..
http://www.liquorstoreclothing.com/t...nded-brand-m48
Japanese Selvedge Jeans for the price of a poorly made massed produced pair of Levi's
I saw that show. The Savile Row tailor, Richard Anderson (who charges around £5k for a Japanese Denim suit) was unable to tell the difference between 2 pairs of jeans priced at £180 and £45.
There are still numerous sources of US made selvedge starting at around $79, and if you wear and wash them they will develop a natural patina without all the daft iGent routines.
Last edited by bonzo697; 19th November 2015 at 10:04.
I wear Levi 501's and picked up another 2 pairs from Costco yesterday. At £35 a pair a real bargain to be honest.
Don't see myself spending more than that on jeans though
I seldom wear jeans anymore. When I do, theyre Levis 201 from the 1999 remake. So not classic classic but better than the later remakes by some margin
Thanks; hadn't heard of them before. Those look legit.
While I'm so keen on the Chinese manufacturing (which they conspicuously avoid mentioning on their site), I believe Macau is one of the less sweatshoppy cities. Though I'd still rather go for Canadian manufacture, it's always good to know of alternatives.
Tempting short run from Hiut. I love their Regular cut.
http://hiutdenim.co.uk/collections/s...un?gender=mens
Gustin seem to make some great stuff, what is the sizing like .
That's true of fashion brands that you'd find in typical non-specialist retail outlets.
No surprise that that program found little correlation between cost and quality in the mass-market segment, though; the vast majority of commonly-available denim is indeed cheaply made, no matter whose label is on it.
agreed, most fashion brands are no better than primark and that includes levis, diesel, supadry and all those other high street names. Edwin and Albam and many others make decent selvage denim that while expensive (£100) they seem to last and wear much better than a similar priced pair of Replay etc made from inferior denim. i get years out of a pair of ED55’s (selvage)
Definitely.
I don't blame the companies for producing such junk, by the way — all they really want is our money. If we as consumers would start showing some interest in where our products come from and how they're made, there wouldn't be much incentive for companies to produce crap. As long as we accept low quality, they'll happily provide it, and that applies to anything we buy.
It's worth mentioning that although the vast majority of Levi's products are indeed rather poorly-made, their LVC denim is a notable exception.
Good info — thanks! That appears to be another quality alternative that's priced not to scare off people who aren't familiar with how superior and more durable good denim actually is.
i've always worn 501s but when levi brought out their lvc range I started to wear their 1933...1937 and 1920 201 versions. really enjoying them. I like to wash them regularly, but to each their own.
Last edited by johny; 19th November 2015 at 19:13.