Paul T

I miss this thread. I also miss Cotton Duck, who helped get my my first cotton duck pullover!

In tirbute to him, here's my new three-pleat duck jacket, alongside the pullover, in a slightly different colour.

This is from 2013, and although I thought it wasn't a Cone fabric, I'm wrong.

A few folks here have seen my denim three-pleat. This is the Cone synthetic 1880s fabric, which is lovely. Gnarly but not overdone. Although I like, for instance, the TCB fabric which looks great from afar, it is very high contrast and super-slubby close up. The Cone in comparison is far blue-er, and subtle.

Now of course, thanks to Spiraltoy I have its companion, the same jacket in cotton duck.


It's similar in construction to the denim version - but not the same. For a start, even though they're the same size, the pockets on the duck version are deeper.

It has some selvage detailing - although not as much as the duck pullover. It's a different fabric. I thought this wasn't Cone, but apparently it is, according to me anyway(!) Again, I thought this might be Turkish-made, but my 2013 story says it was sewn in LA

Here's a story on the development of the first duck replica fabric.



Here is is alongside the duck pullover.

Are the hems chain-stitched?

These are categorically not vintage jeans. What were they listed as?

those are a new design I haven't seen before. I don't see how they can be pre-1987. They don't have the look of fakes, even though there's a clash of different features. there were some weird Canadian-made Levi's in the early 90s that tried to ape a vintage look, so that would be my guess.

It's not the lack of selvage that suggests they're much later than 1971, as some 505 etc had dropped selvage by that time. It's the irregular pockets, the look of the stitching, OE fabric and construction.

3 minutes ago, FreeCharlesManson said:

couple other guys said they couldn't see i dunno 

I couldn't either. Which on balance was a good thing.

(great pair!)

@FreeCharlesManson your previous photos were fine! Why don't you stick with those? ? ?

Was the deadline yesterday? I have more repairs to make, need to buy more cotton today! ... in which case I'll just update this thread.

Rushton did my furst Veldtschoen I remember now; what did he charge you?

12-year old Trickers, rebuilt by the Shoe Healer. Went for Dainite soles this time, for a bit more waterproofing.

With big thanks to Spiraltoy... this is my second 3-pleat.

I've always wanted the duck version of this jacket. It's terrific. Same proportions as the denim, but this is unwashed so maybe a little roomier although sleeves are short. When I get time I'll post a comparison with the duck pullover. I think this is a non-Cone duck fabric - it's a dark mustard, rather than a tan colour. Somewhere way back in this thread I posted photos of them in the marketing showroom when it first came out, alongside a very distressed gingham version. I'm really happy s this is way more practical than the pullover, even if the mustard doesn't echo the tan of my recently rebuilt tricker's quite as well. Jeans are the TCB '20s.

I hope everyone's having a great autumn.

Mine seems to have been crazy busy, with a new job, then over the last week my nipper, once shown as a cheeky toddler on various threads here, went off to uni. In between all that managed to find enough sunny weather to dry those jeans, which came with me on my trip Saturday to say goodbye to T Jr. Along the way there's a bit of the greatest Italian deisgn.. my neigbour up the hill seems to have swapped his Ghia-designed Alfa for a Zagato.

There will be a bit of a dump of photos here, starting with them before wash. I can't see what the photos look like until they're online (running out of disk space!) so I'll probably end up deleting a few from my second post. In an ideal world I'd have time to edit these; my Fuji doesn't give natural colours, unlike our dead Sony RX100, but I think there's at least a few photos here give the look of the jeans pretty much dead-on.

Pre-wash, post repair... this is pretty much dead-on for colour.

Post-wash... the whole of the knee area and beyond is all wearing through. WE will follow up with some more heavy darning, otherwise the whole lot will go. The last wash, right side out, brought out broken stitches all over.

Just waiting for some goddam sun. But Lady T's expertise in repair has reached new heights. Usually we split the outside seam for a better knee repair, but as these are a bit wide managed to avoid that - and still got the patch flat. No time to darn the other numerous small holes I reckon.

Here's the catalog shot from 2001. I'm unsure whether these are US-made or Japan. It tended to be only the unique-to-Japan models that were made over there, with Cone denim for the post 20s jeans.

those 50s ones are nice but there's no real connection with a 66 pair. The pocket shape become more square partly because they didn't have to accommodate the rivet.

This is my old pair of circa '66 502. These were very beautiful with all lemon stitching. There are probably some differences from a contemporary 501, the bar tack is quite distinctive on this pair.

But this is what to me is a quintessential 66 shape: lovely parallel stitching on the sides, and less of a splay than the 55. But still some splay. The arcuate is shallower obviously, than typical 50s jeans, but there are plenty shallower still .

Yet... I just looked at all the Japanese LVC reissues from around 2000 with lots of '60s replicas including the 502. Japanese LVC tended to have more different models (they would have Japaese repros alongside the US ones). There was nothing even vaguely similar to this, in terms of shape or arcuate  - essentially because they based their repros on different originals, and there was so much variation in the 60s especially from factory to factory and probably operator to operator.

I've sat down in the design department at Levi's, looking at a new set of 60s jeans that they bought recently. I suggested to them that the shape of the LVC '66 back pockets is exaggerated - a little over square without enough taper from top to bottom - and the arcuate was over-flat. That was inherited from previous designers, for sure.

Just read some of the previous debate, which we've visited here before. There were a good number of original jeans with similar arcuates. Pockets especially varied from factory to factory, arcuates even more so.  LVC chose a more distinctive look, an outlier maybe, to make the 66 very different from the 55 (Levis' Japan did the same for some of their models). For my money, it's the pocket shape that's dissatisfying, just a little too square.

Obviously, first time around they meant to make the 66 jeans more distinct from the 55. I thiknk the current team know that. But my guess is they've got a lot on their plate (including the company float) and that tweaking existing cuts is low on their priorities.

I still love my '66 though. Will update them here after their next wash.

22 minutes ago, lee porter said:

It’s a Levi jacket on eBay at the moment Paul t I don’t know how to get the link here or a picture it says made in Hong Kong and has the capital e 

Just paste the URL here?

11 hours ago, lee porter said:

Original 1960's Big E Levi's Red Tab Trucker Jacket in Mid Blue Stone Wash.    Made in Hong Kong around 1965 when the company set up a sales office and began opening factories to manufacture Levi's clothing there.     Just copied this did this happen Paul t

Link?

No, it didn't happen around 1965! They opened a Scottish plant in 1980 or so, which was a big deal and well documented.

22 hours ago, lee porter said:

Are the big e jackets  that’s where made in Hong Kong in the 60s/70s original come mill denim or would it have been something else 

Levi's made in Hong Kong in the 60s/70s? Do tell !

Love those!

I've spent years trying to really break in my 1901, similar era, as in five summers, hand washes only. They were just on the turn when the TCB 20s contest started. Can't wait to revisit them, they are a lovely shape, with a terrific turquoise-tinted denim.

there's nothing wrong with cutting off the cinch if you prefer a belt, plenty of folk did so in the 30s for exactly the same reason.

those are lovely photos!

I am belatedly shrinking down the nice piece of linen I use for repairs.

What will everyone do with their pairs once we finish? I am out of space in my denim box.

PS: does anyone else detest Apple Photos? It is absolutely useless.

1 hour ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Where’s your new school Paul? My son has just started at secondary today 

Aw, is he one of those cute Year 7s?

Thomas Tallis in Greenwich. Insanely fun adrenalised first proper 'teaching' day today.

My sneaky tricks include a new job where I wear a suit!

I am waiting on Lady T finding time to install what I think might be the world's laptop-wear repair patch, it's very exciting.