supershopper

Some of the conversation here feels in the spirit of some of the philosophical thoughts (both clothing/style and otherwise) that I've been thinking about during late nights with my son. Here is my screed. There are all sorts of different reasons that lead people to choose the items that they wear. They may dress a certain way due to economics, aesthetics, to generate "likes", to blend in, to stand out,  to convey affinity or membership in a particular subculture, because they just enjoy wearing particular items for the sake of it, etc. Obviously, these reasons are not all mutually exclusive. In the image and click based world of today, arguably certain reasons are privileged more than others. In an Instagram fit pic, a pair of vintage Evis Lot 2501 No. 1 (as an example pertinent to this thread) will be more or less indistinguishable from a pair of modern day Levis or mall brand jeans and would generate no more likes or hype, as opposed to say the Oni Asphalt fabric. In the real world though, their is an intangible element to those Evis that can only be experienced through love and wear - the tactile experience of the fabric, the history, the passion, dedication, and craftsmanship of the creator. This goes beyond clothing as well, at least it does for me. It's similar to the reason why I collect vintage pulp hardboiled and sci-fi paperbacks rather than the modern day reissues of those titles. I just love the vintage Robert McGinnis cover art as opposed to the more soulless covers of today. It's the reason why I'm going to start getting into film photography (at least occasionally) with an old Nikon SLR and an old Leica rangefinder. Sure I can probably create more technically perfect images with my Fuji mirrorless camera and Lightroom, but then I lose some of the tactile joy and craft of the analog experience. Rather than spamming 100s of shots for the perfect image, I have to be much more deliberate in my choices. Even in my professional area of science (chemistry,chemical engineering/soft matter physics), there was a sense of discovery, wonder, and careful details present in older literature than in contemporary literature. These older works often did science for the sake of fundamental discovery and carefully crafted experiments and shared the results in a more sober matter-of-fact manner. I never learned as much as I did from literature from the mid-90s and earlier. Today, as in denim, a lot of the work fixates more on the final product than the journey. Large portions of academic research focus more on device fabrication and subsequent commodification in search of an easy start-up spinoff or payday at the expense of fundamental research. I don't blame them since such hype generation drives a lot of the funding decisions, at least in the US, but this reality is ultimately what led me away from academic roles/professorships and is partly why I'm now an industrial scientist. To  conclude and as a slight aside, some of the discussion here is ultimately what led me to purchase the TCB no. 2. The jeans are clearly polarizing in aesthetic as evidence by the contest thread here. They were most definitely not designed to generate 100 fit pic posts on Reddit. Rather, they exist because Inoue-san clearly loves the history of the denim and cared deeply about maklng those jeans for their own sake. Are they a pair that I would pick in a vacuum - no. However, I too appreciate the attention to detail and wanted to do my smallest part to ensure that the passion and craft can live on a little longer

13-13.5 oz.

Denim looks real nice, what was the weight again?

Gave them a wash yesterday, liking where they are headed. Will probably give them another wash in a couple of months.