Paul T

5 hours ago, oomslokop said:

maybe @Paul T can tell us why: one big difference i've noticed from cone denim i've worn (sanforized 13-14 oz on rs blacksmith and unsanforized 12 oz NOS (so they say) on mf cali 54) is that it goes "white" at a much slower rate than japanese denim (i've worn fc, sc, dry bones, wh, tender, bootleggers reunion, et al). the upper thighs on my japanese jeans go white after about a year, but cone denim stays blue longer. 

 

Some Japanese denim wears at the same rate as Cone. But a lot of their denim is specifically designed to crock much faster, by having the indigo sitting in a more shallow layer. Samurai would be a great example. In contrast, a lot of SDA denim wears slowly just like Cone .

Of course, there are many variables and other issues, especially how they design their slubbing and irregularities.

I spotted that when we had that ad for the denim book. If it's the same catalogue I copied, a mail order firm I think, they might simply have the story wrong. Note they don't use Levi's Lot Numbers. 

I can't remember the explanation but I know the story on weight is not as cut and dried as we think. There's one expert thinks the story is wrong and that they're referring to linear weight - which means the older jeans were hardly any lighter than modern ones.

Note also that at least some of the time Levi's used the term Sanforized, when again received wisdom was they didn't do so.

Cone get their cotton from all over; a lot still from the Carolinas, the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, and also Texas. As a huge generalisation, in the old days they would have sourced mainly from the Carolinas and the Delta, then gradually brought in more from further away. Texas cotton was shorter staple length mainly because it grew in a hotter, drier climate. This is why later denim tended to be hairier than earlier.

Now they tend to mix cotton from all over - that way they get less variation, as it will vary via when you harvest it as well as when it comes from, so  they try to 'average out' the variation from year to year for more consistency. That then gives them more of a blank canvas to design the yarns.

More info here from Allen Little:
http://loomstate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/

and from Bud Strickland (who left a few years back.)
http://loomstate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/bud-strickland-cone-and-magnetic-appeal.html

Scary. I am wearing the three-pleat and a pair of Veldtschoen boots right now. But no blanket until it gets colder...

are those Cheaney?

8 minutes ago, bartlebyyphonics said:

^ the glorious mysteries of thermal underwear i guess... breaking out my uniqlo x monster hunter thermals for that very reason... 

on a more historical but related note; any consensus on when denim waist overalls/jeans moved from being over-trousers that protect a 'nicer' pair into a pair of trousers in their own right? is it around 20s or more 50s?

Interesting question. Definitely gone by the 30s - women wore them as fashion-wear by then, so I suspect it was only bib overalls conventionally worn over trousers. And there were good numbers wore them as regular pants well before then, even from the late 1800s, so I suspect they were only over-trousers for some people, not all. FOr instance, Can't Bust Em's Frisko Jeens, worn by sailors, were never over-garments.

I always used to think turning them inside out was overdoing it - until I got absolutely insane marbling on my SDA 103, and on my LVC 66 too. Some denim seems much more prone to it than others.

Props for that Mayakovsky shot. I am admiring it while hitching up my cuffs and looking forward to the imminent Tate Red Star Over Russia show.

53 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

X-posting a question raised by Dr Heech on Denimbro.

Does anyone know if the Valencia factory-produced duck clothing from 1999/2000 was made from Cone fabric or was the fabric imported from Japan?

That's a good question (which of course I'd expect with Dr Heech). The newer one developed in 2008 by Cone had the really wide selvage line. I have a feeling that the earlier one was from somewhere unexpected, Italy or most likely Turkey. Quite a lot of LVC canvases have come from Turkey including the recent Crazy Legs and probably that mustard coloured one of a few years back.

18 minutes ago, bartlebyyphonics said:

indeedly

That is so sad. Happening all over; so many folks complain about and then drive to Primark and buy Chinese shit. We really do need a new economic model.

Anyways, here's some Cone fabric. Not Samurai, nor 18 ounces, but call me a fool... I like it.

2 hours ago, aho said:

My final submission...Sorry everyone, no holds barred this time, I needed to win:

 

Sorry Aho, that's Cone denim, looks a bit flat and uninteresting.

Interesting, I always thought the 40s version would be a wartime model but you're right, it's a really good late 40s repro that we need.

I realise one fab Cone product I own, which never got any love here as it's not a pair of pants.

WHen I developed the Roy contest fabric with Ralph I begged some fabric off them: the indigo duck. Like quite a few Cone fabrics, once they introduced it, Japanese mills followed up with something similar (the current TCB 20s have belt loops from a similar Japanese fabric). It's a real sleeper fabric, and was never used for much apart from some lovely Made & Crafted chinos. THey had to resin-coat them, I heard, as it crocks so much.  I still have a couple of metres which I treasure so much that I'm not sure what I'll ever use it for.

But I did get this great kit bag made by an English saddler, Matt Fothergill, who used to have a shop off Columbia Road.
 

Nice jeans... what date?

Have they been shortened?

More rivals sounds great!

Mine have dried, will update when I get a chance. Great jeans, though, lots of lovely quirks, definitely little surprises all over so thanks to Volvo and everyone (and Mandel for forbearance).

I am pretty sure that is it. They had projectile looms at White Oak, but I guess they replaced that with off-shore production - so it was only the shuttle looms that were left, as those were the only fabrics they could get decent prices for.

We didn't talk about it, but ACG was the other big US mill using projectile looms. They were a big supplier to Levi's - but closed in 2015. They were comparatively young, I think the mill opened in the 1970s.

Of course, the loss of Cone and everyone else will have knock-on effects for farmers. Cotton is still a big crop in the South.

https://www.pcca.com/article/acg-denim-mill-and-levi-strauss-co/

http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2015-05-17/leaving-mill-displaced-american-cotton-growers-workers-find-new-lives#.Vi_tnn6-lBc

This thread inspires some SuFu nostalgia.

This is a Cone jacket that we think dates from the late 40s or early 50s (there's an almost identical one in the company's archive). I found it on Brick Lane for £25. My son wore it for a year or two; then we sent it on to a great SuFu contributor, Lilldavid. I can't find the pic of his lovely nipper but here's the jacket. He was going to pass it on to another SuFu child. I hope it's still circulating around the SuperFuture universe somewhere, 70 years after that fabric rolled off the loom!

On 6/13/2009 at 4:15 PM, lilldavid said:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH PAUL!!!!

I'll post fit pictures in a year

Also in the context of this thread, it might be interesting to look at one of Cone's great last collaborations with Levi's.

This all came when Cone pulled a loom out of reception where it was on display. It was one of the oldest Drapers, I think the Model E. And it still carried the last rolls of fabric that was being loomed just before they shot down selvage production. Seeing it, the LVC guys said "Let's do a 78 repro." Then they realised it was left-hand twill - maybe made for Lee. Levi's never used a left-hand twill; they concluded they could only have produced one in a mirror-image universe. So they made the mirror-image 1978 501.

This is a pair made using the actual deadstock fabric. The bulk of the run used a repro 78 l-h twill.

These are lovely, historic jeans and a great reminder that Cone didn't just make the fabric for Levi's, they made it for Lee, JC Penney and countless more brands.

I had a long post that I deleted because derailment. Here's my nipper's 302. It could well have been Mildred Bolen who milled these in the late 60s; when they hauled the X-3 looms into the basement she was depressed because she was reduced to doing odd jobs around the plant. How wonderful that she had a 20 year coda doing the job she loved when they hauled them back up onto the cherry-wood main floor.

Pix in the mag spread are by Farhad Samari.

 

Yup, pissing in the coffin about covers it.

It's great you like other brands. Please do go and post lovely photos of those jeans in the appropriate thread.

Because you seem to be making a category error: Cone made the denim that all other brands are paying tribute to. Anyone who loves denim in general should be saddened at their passing , because they wrote the book. They invented rope dyeing; they came up with the red line on denim; they were the first major mill to use automatic looms; they popularised synthetic indigo. THey didn't only develop Levi's fabric as we know it - they were responsible for other historic denim too, like Lee Jelt.  I'm sure you knew all of that, though. This isn't a case of one brand vs another. This is about a century's worth of history.

2 minutes ago, Sympathy-For-The-Denim said:

also current standart shrink to fit 501s  come with a white oak label inside the waistband:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LEVIS-501-SELVEDGE-ORIGINAL-FIT-BUTTON-FLY-WHITE-OAK-CONE-MILLS-JEANS-32x34-Dry/232288313914?hash=item361576623a:g:3hgAAOSwXYtY3cUF

Those are weird. Non-contrast stitching?

2 hours ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

@jewellbenThe hem is nearly exactly at 8". Still the leg feels rather big. Knee is quite wide but I would need to re-measure the pair.

 

With Paul being so active these days I hope he can step in and confirm.

I see more and more conspiracy (ok, only on reddit) theories saying LVC doesn’t use White Oak Cone denim because they don’t explicitly write that on the tags or anywhere else. Only that they write: “Made of Cone Denim”. So something along the line of the denim being from Cone which has its headquarters in North Carolina but the denim itself could still be from their Chinese or Mexican mills. Do their other sites have shuttle looms at all? Paul do you know more?
I remember you saying that all LVC denim for the rigid models if it is from Cone it is also from White Oak.

At present all the Draper looms are in Greensboro so yes, that is a conspiracy theory.

It might well be that the yarn is made in Mexico or elsewhere; it's vaguely possible this is why, on the current natural indigo jeans, the label says "made in the US of imported fabric." The denim was definitely loomed at White Oak (and dyed using indigo from Tennessee) but they're either using a generic label to save hassle, or perhaps the yarn was made in an offshore Cone plant (although I don't know that). That said, it's really worth pointing out that LVC and COne design every yarn from scratch as opposed to buying it in from someone else (which all other mills except Kurabo do).

yes, all the LVC Cone is from White Oak which is the only shuttle loom location. Sanforized denim is Kaihara and some of the chambray etc is from Nihon Menpu and others.

I've tried to find what's happening to the looms in future  but not very hard, I don't want to ask people whose jobs are probably doomed.

If you look at Cone, you get all these shades of blue, from dark black to a greeny mid tone, that you don't get, say, with many other fabrics. This is how vintage-style jeans should look. Of course the Japanese companies we love offer a different take and that's wonderful.