PeterParker

I can't fathom wearing a pair of jeans with a zipper fly now. Button fly is faster to undo, while zip is faster to do-up; more often, I'm in a rush to do the former than the latter!

Give those another hot soak with agitation (i.e. a hot wash) to really make sure all of the fibres soak up the water. In most cases several hot soaks are required to get most of the shrinkage out. With the amount of room you have, I'd also flip them inside out and chuck them in the dryer till they're just slightly damp.

LFC4ever, I'm not sure why you are so outraged by all of this.

Can anyone comment on why Kapital jeans are so much more expensive in the US?

You asked a question. The pricing of Kapital in the US was debated and speculated upon.

Retailers set their own prices, they have to make a profit, and the have to cover their customs expenses. If you want Kapital stuff and not pay ridiculous prices go through a proxy.

A person intimate with Kapital commented on why their prices are higher in foreign markets compared to the Japanese market; his information was factual, true to reality.

Seriously, I've asked a legitimate question and encouraged some debate around it in order to get some information....

Are you saying we should have some sort of censorship on this forum and not ask any questions regarding pricing models? That's the message I'm getting.

There is no censoring of anyone here. Not sure exactly what sort of response you were expecting; imagine if you made this inquiry in the Flat Head, or Warehouse, Samurai, etc. thread. However, in most cases, the same response applies. Even if bandana is employed by Kapital, did you expect him to explain their business model to you on an internet forum?

I haven't done the statistical analysis nor have I any education in international business, but it's pretty obvious that markup of all imported Japanese denim fluctuates from one retailer to the next. Exchange rates are constantly changing; perhaps the rate was unfavourable (on the purchasing end) when the order was made. Duty amounts may depend on the wholesale value; perhaps lower duty rates apply for larger orders than smaller orders.

LFC4ever, perhaps you should step back from the computer, have a beer, and enjoy whatever jeans you are wearing. In fact, I think that's exactly what I am going to do.

It belongs to our friend Matt who wore this jean every day for 1 year and 6 months with ZERO washes. Now that's disgusting!

FTFY.

I thought the no washing philosophy was a Nudies and APC thing. Does Naked & Famous/Tate & Yoko preach the same philosophy to its customers?

What news from the judges of the competition?

I get that the spirit is to produce examples of well worn denim, but after all this is a contest so there must be a winner.

Who will be crowned (...or belted?) the Heavyweight Denim Champion?

The standard Whites heel is a pretty tough one to wear down. Even with constant wear it should just about make 2 years.

My Bounty Hunters are less than a year old and I maybe have 5mm left at the thinnest edge of the heel. I'm doubtful that it will last another year, but I have worn them pretty hard and put some good mileage on them.

A couple of observations about the trial pair, with regard to detailing on the pairs posted by aho:

http://www.marvins-jp.com/denimpants/dp-323/dp-323.html

http://www.marvins-jp.com/denimpants/dp-1173-%28418%29/dp-1173.htm

http://www.marvins-jp.com/denimpants/dp-721/dp-721.html

The v-stitch at the top button on the trial pair comes below the button, as opposed to above the button.

The coin pocket looks to be placed a little low; look how close it is to the waistband on some of the example pairs. Also, none of the examples feature peekaboo selvage on the coin pocket; why does the trial pair have this feature?

The thread colour looks a very yellow compared to the raw pair, which shows much more orange thread. Even on one of the washed pairs the stitching looks darker than that of the trial pair.

The denim colour looks darker and greyer compared to the raw pair (perhaps difference in white balance of the photos?). The vintage denim looks remarkably lighter and bluer, which is quite evident in the worn pairs as well.

The leg shape appears to have a fairly steady taper to below the knee, whereas the example pairs appear to be straight from the knee down.

To be honest, I'm not too fussed about these details on most pairs of jeans. I am also not an expert in Levi's repro details. However, if we are going to label these as a reproduction of 1946 pair of 501, then based on the provided examples I think some of these details are lacking. Sorry to be so critical, Taichi.

Whites makes boots for wilderness firefighters, i.e. they are built to be worn every day, in hot, dry, dusty conditions, caked in mud, drenched in water, doing hard physical labour.

Even under these conditions, a pair of White's should easily last a couple of years and resoles with proper care. I'd be impressed if somebody who works behind a desk and checks into SuFu twice a day could thrash a pair of Whites in the duration of this contest.

Anyone ever wash or hotsoak their one wash eternals and got more shrinkage out of them?

My one-wash 811's were thrown into the washing machine followed by a pretty intense machine drying by my grandma.

End result: a gnarly patch, insane roping, and overall they had essentially shrunk down an entire size. Size 32 measurements:

Waist Thigh (Crotch) Thigh (1") Knee Hem Front Rise Back Rise Inseam

Pre: 32 12 11.5 8.75 8.25 10.5 14 33

Post: 31.5 11.5 11 8.5 7.75 11 13.5 32

Here's some more duck for y'all

Pre-soak

Post-soak

And for inquisitive minds, here is the roping comparison between the original hem and the wider hem:

Every Self Edge store has a slightly different folding attachment on the 43200g machine we use.

The one at SESF was actually set up by Roy, so at SESF the hem looks identical to his jeans.

But since it was set up by Roy last year we've actually had people come back and say "the hem distance between the stitch and the end of the jean is too short, can you make it wider?"

You can't win.

kiya, thanks for the explanation.

I remember seeing this excellent article a while back detailing chainstitching at SELA with Johan. The fold produced by this attachment appears to be consistent with the hem I received on my Roy's, although slightly narrower. Pity that this machine doesn't produce the narrower fold. I guess parts for 43200g are hard to come by. I will keep this in mind in the future and get my jeans hemmed at SESF; how about SENY, which attachment do they have?

It's true that I am obsessed about the hem on my jeans, but to me it's an important detail. I have no doubt that Roy obsesses over such a detail when crafting his jeans. My thought is that any "aftermarket" hem (in the context of a dedicated denim retailer) should attempt to replicate the original hem. Take5 HK, Blue in Green, and Right Hand Distribution have hemmed jeans for me, and I can say they all produce narrow and close to original hems.

I was under the impression that even though the canvas weave does not distort as much as denim, it's the difference in shrinkage between the thread at the hem and the fabric that causes roping. However, there doesn't appear to be much roping on leftyaxeslinger's pair.

I received my Roy Duck-1's in the mail from SELA today. The fantastic detailing on these has been well documented, so I'll spare the photographs. Coming from denim, the duck canvas feels very light, which is a welcome change from wearing some of the heavier denim.

I'm not too thrilled about the the hemming job on these, however. The hem is fairly broad (over 1cm wide), rather than the narrower hem of the original hem done by Roy, and typically seen on well-constructed jeans.

A big selling point of these was the combination of Roy's construction and the unsanforized fabric, which should produce lots of puckering and roping along the seams.. I'm afraid such a broad hem will not produce tight roping and seriously considering getting these rehemmed...

Maxpower, I'm not sure what relevance having a 38" raw inseam length has to do with my comment, or shrinkage in general.

Obviously your desired finished inseam length depends on how you want to wear them. As I have stated, I'm not planning on cuffing, and definitely not stacking. Max Power, you seem to like to have stacks and cuffs, so you may require that 38" raw inseam.

However, I think a 38" raw inseam is unrealistic, and unnecessary for the majority of us. Besides, that would drive up the material cost for the jeans when most of us would be chopping 4 inches off.

Basing shrinkage off of longer raw inseams (i.e. 38") bothers me because people will reference the maximum shrinkage (i.e. 3 inches) rather than the percentage. I'll wager that a pair of these jeans with a 33" raw inseam will not shrink down to 30", and you'll be stuck in the opposite situation with jeans that are too long.

Dammit, Viberg makes expensive boots. Beautifully crafted, but expensive boots.

Not sure if it's just the resolution of the photo, but it looks like there's some streaky character to the denim. Great stuff, mackie!

I like to keep my cell bitch status discrete. I'm certainly not one to wear jeans with a cell bitch fly.

Dammit, I need a pair of natural CXL boots in my life. Why weren't there such abundant options (e.g. Oak Street trench boot, White's custom option, etc.) available when I made my boot purchase?

It's like the natural CXL gods are conspiring against me, what with my poorly conceived Alden contest boot, and White's making natural CXL an option weeks after I placed my order! Hopefully Horween will be producing this wonderful leather for years to come so that the next time I need a boot, I'll make the right choice.

I think for anyone shooting for a finished inseam of 30 to 34 inches, which should accommodate anyone who is of normal stature, an additional 2 inches pre-soak is a good rule of thumb (+/- half an inch).

We're talking unsanforized denim that isn't slack woven, so anything beyond 5 to 7% shrinkage is unlikely.

At least, I'm pretty confident that a 32" inseam will get me around my desired 30" inseam. If I was really concerned about them being too short, I'd go 32.5". I definitely don't want to have to do a second hem and lose the roping from the initial soak, or use a 1" bitch cuff to tidy the slack length.

right on. Im just being paranoid about the 1 size down, as I never really do that. I think Im gonna cold soak them just to be safe and go from there.

Sizing down on the 1108's is pretty painful. I don't know how much sizing fluctuates from lot to lot, but the 15th anniversary pair has the slimmest top block and thighs of all of my jeans, which are all the same tagged size. The previous owner supposedly soaked them (although unworn), but they still feel raw making me apprehensive of soaking them...

Good luck with those and hopefully they'll stretch enough for you.

And here are some pictures of the classic brown leather, more of a tan colour than than the brown smooth.

Just a word of caution regarding the White's classic and distressed smooth leathers; while durable and tough wearing, these leathers are aesthetically underwhelming. At least that seemed to be fresco's opinion with the brown, and my opinion with the distressed. Compared to CXL, the leather lacks character, sheen, and depth of colour.

I believe these leathers are meant to cater to the dedicated workboot crowd (e.g. firefighters, mechanics, etc.) who require something durable to take a a thrashing, rather than the "shoes that look better with age" crowd.

I have and love the latter. I have split the past year about equally between those and my IH dc4001s, but you'd guess that I'd only worn them at the most 1/10 as much as the IHs.... I'll be wearing mine for a long time, and swapping them in for the MBBs when it gets too hot for 25oz over the next two years.

Heavyweight denim is overrated. I'd give the Roy's more attention. The notion that heavyweight denim is more durable than average weight denim is a fallacy. Just look at the results of the heavyweight contest and the Eternal contest, both produced jeans that were shredded to shit after two years.

Roy has been producing jeans for over two years now, and the only well worn pairs I have seen have been robbie's OG(?) pair and those from the RxC contest. It's a shame that we haven't seen more honestly worn-in pairs, given that his jeans sell out within weeks (or days?) of being released.

I think the "extreme" fading population is over-represented here on sufu. It's an indication of naivete when it comes to raw denim, adopting the mentality of sizing down 2, not washing for a year, etc.

If you check out the worn pairs by most sufu veterans, you will notice that the vintage aesthetic is much more favoured.

I believe it comes down to aesthetic and maintenance, moreso than the textile. Sure, some denim will yield higher contrast fades, but a pair of true-to-size straight cut (or mildly tapered) jeans, washed bimonthly (or more frequently), won't produce sharp honeycombs, regardless of the type of denim. For example, poly800rock's Samurais posted in the Evo thread - not all Sams need to be high contrast. Sharply defined combs are a telltale sign of extended wear before washing, as the first wash will shift the creases and scatter the honeycomb pattern. I definitely find myself gravitating towards washing sooner, no later than at 4 month intervals.

Oh, and to keep things on the topic of ROY - quack!

Argh... why must you tempt me? Still have plenty of years left in my BH, but wouldn't mind a pair of lower profile Natural CXL BH a la hollowsleather (no toe reinforcement, double leather sole, maybe all eyelets).

Care to spill the beans on how good is the discount?

Does the 800 use different hardware than the other Warehouse staples (e.g. 700 and Dubbleworks 660)? Seems to be much more oxidation on the fly buttons with the 800 than the other models.

Loving my 700J at the moment, and still have a pair of 660 waiting to be worn, but feel like I could use a pair of the 800! Also, would love to get a Leepro Storm Rider jacket by Warehouse, whenever they make another batch.