cultpop 0217

January 23

Couple fits

Today:

Ebbets Field X Future Monsters wool cap

Vintage wool cardigan

Wood necklace

Vintage Batman T

Vintage belt

501 STF

New to me vintage Chippewa

And earlier this week:

Denim Fishermen's

Cropped cow sweater

Wooden necklace

Vintage Sebring Race T

Vintage belt

Vintage 517 Dura Last Orange tab

Vintage Cowboy boots

January 15

Vintage 1970s Made in USA Orange Tab 517 Saddleman Boot Jeans made with Dura Plus Denim "A special blend of cotton and polyester for improved shrinkage control" less wrinkles, and improved fabric strength.

What a mouthful. These were made around my third birthday in November of 1978. They have an small "e" orange tab, Talon 42 zipper, two different colored threads on the inside inseam (a favorite) and a weird sun? bleached spot on the knee from where they were folded on a shelf. They were hemmed at the perfect length to flare out nicely over both my boots and my loafers and with a nice higher rise they fit like a glove. Which is good because unlike other poly blended denim, these have zero stretch with even less give than 100% cotton denim. Like old washed Wrangler broken twill. Sturdy, solid, unyielding.

January 13

Denim newsboy

Rag&Bone indigo henley

Vintage vest

Thrift belt with fancy buckle

Mister Freedom Outlaw in deadstock Cone

Newly resoled Frye Engineer boots

And a new ring, made from a vintage stainless steel Batman spoon by Midnight Jo on Etsy (paired with a vintage Mickey Mouse spoon ring.)

January 13

1 minute ago, MJF9 said:

@cultpop 0217 hey mate, would be better in the 2024 WAYWT

Yeah I just realized and reposted.

January 5

Layers. It's finally cold!

Denim cap

Wool scarf

Wood bead necklace

Vintage wool captains coat. Super heavy, structured and thick, with great texture. It used to have brass buttons but I swapped them for traditional anchors years ago.

Cropped fuzz sweater

Suede vest

R. Crumb Robert Johnson tee (thanks again @chicote!)

Fave belt

Mister Freedom Outlaw in Cone

Vintage brass bottle opener

Chippewas

January 1

HAPPY 2024 EVERYONE 🖤

Denim cap

Vintage Novelty Sweater

Perfect Vintage NYU film Tee (Xmas gift from wife)

Favorite belt

Mister Freedom Outlaw in deadstock Cone Mills (Xmas gift from myself)

Chippewa

December 28, 2023

Wore this to our Awful Santa party at work. The "cowdigan" was a huge hit. "Udderly" delightful some said.

Denim Fisherman's Cap

Destroyed leather jacket

Thrifted cropped cardigan

Vintage "12 Hours of Sebring '90" T

Vintage button braces with

Vintage tuxedo pants

Vintage Cowboy boots

Great print, cracked and puffy. The back is pretty great too.

The necklace exploded shortly after this picture was taken. I found most of the pieces.

December 17, 2023

Denim cap

Velour Blazer

Button up by Pretty Snake

Vintage belt

Vintage 501 STF (sized up)

Chippewa

Camera is still getting weird

December 1, 2023

Shane Macgowen died and I don't have a Pogues shirt so the vintage Guiness will have to suffice. Godspeed to a poet. 🖤

Future Monsters x Ebbets Field wool cap

Wool BSA jacket with patches

Vintage sweater

Guiness tee

Vintage belt

Black 501 STF

Vintage cowboy boots

Aside from the occasional trucker cap I'm not really a baseball cap guy but I couldn't resist this 1900s design. Thoughts?

November 29, 2023

Trusty cap

Vintage hand knit cardigan

Vintage tissue thin Santa Fe Sweedway t

Slim leather western belt that I actually hate with these jeans. Needs more heft. Already swapped it.

Mister Freedom Outlaw black

Chippewa

November 17, 2023

Denim on denim on denim and a beautiful day at the mall waiting to see a movie for my birthday last Tuesday. (The Holdovers, excellent film)

Denim cap

Levis jacket

Vintage knit jersey with flocked letters

Levi's hemp and cotton 501s

Chippewa boots

November 13, 2023

Freshly washed 15 year old Levi's 501 button fly Shrink to Fit jeans.

Bought these at Sears in Oak Brook mall around Christmas of 2008 and shrank them in the tub on January 11th, 2009. I have been wearing them off and on for the past 14 years (although they have spent some time in retirement due to weight fluctuation).

They've never been inside a dryer but these have continued to shrink as expected ( mostly in length and volume) a little bit with every wash and now they fit comfortably with a little room to spare after approximately 65 pounds swing up and down the scale. Now they need a belt. The fading has been slow and steady but there is still a ton of color left in these.

Crappy factory hems

wimpy honeycombs.

And one pre wash shot.

And how they currently fit.

November 8, 2023

Shaved for Halloween so I've been hiding my face a bit. Also in desperate need of a haircut.

Denim Fisherman Cap

Vintage hand knit Cowichan "inspired" novelty sweater

Iggy Pop tour tee

Trusty painted leather belt

Left Field NYC x Blackblue x Collect Mills

Vintage Chippewas

October 21, 2023

1 hour ago, southofnonorth said:

CSF Type 2

Cushman x CSF jeans… trying to figure out if I should’ve sized down 1 size on the jeans 🧐

I think they look really good.

I've been trying to remember lately that not everything needs to fit as small as possible.

A good fit is a good fit.

October 19, 2023

Trusty Cap

Vintage Levis shirt with pearl snaps and smiling pockets (cropped)

The Smiths tee

Trusty belt

Left Field X Blackblue X Collect Mills Greaser

Chippewa boots

Cant make up my mind on the cuffs.

Greasy lens

October 18, 2023

Some detail shots of the Left Field NYC X Blackblue collab jeans.

The denim is a 15 oz indigo warp, black weft from Collect Mills. No idea how many washes but they have definitely been in a washing machine, possibly a dryer too.

Love the denim and the fit.

October 17, 2023

Some detail shots of the Cone Mills "Sunflower" tweed denim.

Hidden rivets

lots of inky goodness left in the fly.

Screenshot_20231017-102550_Gallery.jpg.eeaeaeeb564ed9bc1536bb7ee4d11c9f.jpg

October 17, 2023

Great fit @rbeck

How do they compare to the greasers?

October 17, 2023

8 hours ago, smoothsailor said:

Pretty cool @cultpop 0217 .

would this be from the same guy/company who did the horrible Ed Hardy stuff?

I had a pair of von Dutch jeans in 95 or so. They had flames painted on the cuff, and the fit was more or less the same as yours

Not at first. Ed Boswell started the company to make patches and brought on Michael Cassel, a former drug dealer, and Bobby Vaughn, former pro surfer who were in charge of developing the brand's clothing.

That's when the skate stuff happened and probably when your flame jeans were made.

Christian Audigier was the Ed Hardy guy and he came on as designer for Von Dutch around 2002 after it was sold to a Danish investor.

Then came the trucker caps and the bling.

After Von Dutch collapsed, Audigier would go on to form Ed Hardy.

October 16, 2023

Denim on denim on denim today.

-Denim Fisherman's cap

-Vintage Levi's jacket

-LVC eyeball tee

-Favorite leather belt

-Vintage Von Dutch jeans ( deadstock circa 1999). Yes THAT Von Dutch. *

-Vintage Horween shell cordovan longwings in desperate need of a resole. The insole tells me they were sold at Hannigs in Chicago but no idea of the brand or maker.

* If you are curious why the hell I'm wearing a pair of vintage Von Dutch jeans head over to the "Vintage Denim?" thread for a long winded history lesson.

October 16, 2023

Part 2

(Continued from last page)

After falling down a rabbit hole trying to dig up some information on the 1984 brand and it's connection to Von Dutch I found this early pair for sale and I couldn't pass them up. The top button is missing but no hole left in the fabric tells me it was never added and the tags tell me these have never seen water so they must have been sitting folded up somewhere since the turn of the century.

The details are very similar to the pair that I purchased at the skate shop years ago although this is a much thicker and more robust denim and instead of some light "oil staining" on the legs these have an nice brown/olive weft that gives them their dirty look. They also have some of the earliest examples of fake whiskers that I've seen and for 1999, it's actually not too bad of a job. Can't remember if my old pair had the same fake distressing or not but the wash is more realistic than most of what you'll find today.

Again the cut is a vaguely vintage inspired relaxed taper but these are at least one size too big in the waist so they are extra full in the leg with plenty of anti fit.

Retro inspired tags, fake selvedge, donut button fly, and again made in the U.S.A. with a tag emploring us to ride them "Until the Wheels Come Off". No bling in sight.

Below: some retro inspired branding details and the same inside care tag as my old 1984 jeans.

Hard to imagine what this company was about to become from this humble well built pair.

Styled them here with denim on denim on denim. Digging the full leg shape.

Denim Fishermen's cap

Vintage Levis jacket

LVC tee

Favorite leather belt

Von Dutch Jeans

Some beat up shell longwings in desperate need of a resole.

The fly showing the missing top button and a bit of the denim texture including the colored weft.

The outseam stitching is clearly meant to evoke a selvedge line.

October 16, 2023

Part 1 (continued next page)

"TILL THE WHEELS FALL OFF"

A story about 1984 jeans.

And now for something completely different...

Bit of a ramble coming...but also some obscure and not so obscure denim history.

So way back in 1998- 1999 I was still skating every day. While buying fresh wheels I noticed a new pair of jeans, a denim jacket, along with a promo video, had showed up at my local skate shop.

The video was called "Let It Bleed" and the company was called 1984. The video was raw and rough and the skaters were very hesh, with a punk and metal soundtrack, opening up with Devo's "Gut Feeling" and featuring bootleg clips from crime movies in between the skating, I was instantly sold.

The jeans themselves were like a vintage 501 cut from a very hatchy yet soft washed denim with a dirty oil wash, slight taper and red stitching on the outseam to simulate a selvage line. Even had a red tab in the right spot that read "1984" and the button fly had vintage donut buttons. The inner tag announced that they were proudly Made in USA with "American hands" and invited the owner to wear them "Until the wheels came off". Vaguely hot rod inspired skate jeans made in the U.S.A. with an edgy name?

Of course I had to have them.

Now keep in mind that the premium denim explosion had not yet blown up and the fledgling Levis Vintage Clothing was barely 2 years old. The Japanese were already going full speed but the internet was not what it is today and access was very limited and retro inspired lines were not a dime a dozen yet. I think I has heard of "Evis" or EVISU but wouldn't know how to begin finding a pair.

So these fit the bill. I wore them like a vintage pair, with big turn ups and Chucks. I opened them up on Christmas Day 1999 along with my fresh wheels and a new Toy Machine beanie (pictured here with my son, age 2)

I still have the jeans stored away somewhere ( they were actually never great for skating) but never got the denim jacket which was basically a Levi's type 1 with different tags. Notice the selvedge edge!

Found one for sale on Depop but I'm not dropping $200 on it. Shown below:

Did anyone notice the branding on the copper donut buttons? Look closer.

Yes. THAT Von Dutch. Of low rise flares and $100 trucker cap fame.

But French designer Christian Audigier had not yet been brought on board and the ubiquitous trucker cap was still a few years from infamy.

Of course I knew who Von Dutch the artist was but had no idea why his name was on my jeans. Yet. As far as I was concerned this just added to the retro vibe of the pants.

But the whole planet was about to find out what the deal was.

Let's back up. The company Von Dutch originally started when the family of pin striper Kenny Howard, better known as Von Dutch, sold the rights to his name to a local businessman named Ed Boswell who started out selling flying eyeball patches and eventually a clothing line that leaned into the California hot rod/garage/retro/motorcycle subculture vibe that Von Dutch was a part of.

An early patch highlighting the retro garage vibe that Von Dutch launched with:

At some point very early on they decided to do a skateboarding line and that is what the 1984 brand was all about. The skate line was very short lived (maybe just one or two releases and many of the skaters would go on to form the Piss Drunx and later Baker Skateboards) and eventually the company would change hands altogether and the retro hot rod vibe would be almost entirely replaced by something much more garish and blingy after French designer Christian Audigier took over creative control in 2002 and the original owners were sidelined or forced out.

Below is an example of the over the top designs that Audigier popularized.

By 2003 the hats were suddenly everywhere in every color combo and iteration. And since the trucker cap is an easy to wear piece of iconic Americana, everyone got in in it. PUNK'D era Ashton Kutcher sticks out in my mind for some reason but when Brittany Spears was seen on the cover of People wearing one, they exploded overnight.

There is a pretty lengthy and entertaining documentary on Netflix about the rise and fall of Von Dutch as trendy high fashion that covers most of this so I won't go into too much detail here but like most trends, eventually the trucker hats lost popularity and when news of Kenny Howards's racist and Nazi sympathies came to light the brand , now derided as Von Douche, faded into obscurity. Apparently the name and hats have been trying to make a come back recently and although I'm hoping it fails for a second time we are about to experience a wave of Y2K nostalgia that might give them a boost. Next get ready for dirty denim to make a return!

Now if I could just find a used hat cheap enough I would definitely start wearing it just for the shits n giggles.

Ironically, after VD collapsed Audigier would go on to replicate that success by licensing and then bastardizing another infamous American artist with even more garish dreck: ED HARDY.

While I think Kenny Von Dutch Howard was Notsee scum who probably deserved to have his name dragged through the mud, Ed Hardy is an American icon whose work as a tattoo pioneer will forever be overshadowed by very ugly bedazzled t shirts.

But before all that we had a humble clothing line just fiding their identity and trying to carve out a little niche for themselves lmaking vintage inspired denim in the City of Angels a few years before the floodgates of premium denim opened up full bore and terms like raw denim and selvedge were still obscure terms.

If you read all the way to the end of this thank you for listening to me ramble and thank you for your time.

I will be following this up with a much shorter post of me wearing a pair of recently aquired dead stock Von Dutch jeans that I found and challenged myself to style.

Below: A hopelessly ugly pair of pocket-less women's Von Douche denim with far too many patches.

October 15, 2023

Much better fit on the LF X Blueblack x collect Mills pair that just arrived. A bit loose in the waist but liking the fuller leg. These give me a little wiggle room for the holidays too, heh.

Again the denim is just spectacular.

The hidden rivets seem to have nipples and quite low but the earlier tweed pair had flat hidden rivets flush with the bar tack.

Will post detail shots of the denim tomorrow.