Cold Summer

JCrew Short Sleeve, Hollows belt, Flat Head key holder, Buzz Rickson Original Spec chinos, Wesco 7500 boots. I got sunburnted at a car show yesterday, so I look even goofier than usual, hopefully the wacky shirt distracts a bit.

It wouldn't be a big deal if makers like Oak Street were just transparent about doing this stuff. It's the deception and obfuscation that makes me never want to buy products from these sorts of brands.

Freenote Cloth shirt, Hollows belt, TCB Late S40s jeans, John Lofgren Steadfast boots. A rare Flat Headless fit for me.

3Sixteen crosscut shirt, Sid Mashburn belt, Stevenson trousers, Viberg Service Boots.

Some nice fades from Inoue-san's Late S40s jeans on IG. Makes me excited to keep wearing mine, though I've mostly been in my TFH 3003xx lately. https://www.instagram.com/p/DM2txoMT550/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MWN4dTluYWZvOW8xcw==

Because "AI" is utopian marketing fluff for large language modeling and (thankfully) not an actual artificial intelligence, and I have a very low opinion of the whole thing in general. After I wrote that post, it occurred to me that someone might also respond that such an idea isn't new and 20 years ago you could photoshop your fades to cheat at a denim competition/general clout for posting pictures online, which is quite true, but the difficulty of doing this (especially convincingly) is a lot higher than telling ChatGPT to Enhance The Fades. Actually now I'm wondering if there have been any documented cases of somebody being found out for faking/photoshopping fades, whether for a contest or anything else. I can't remember hearing of that happening, but perhaps I missed it.

Thanks! I wrote more about it in this post in the Nice Things thread (and some more if you scroll down.) It makes for a nice backdrop for my WAYWT photos, in addition to being a pretty sweet ride.

Flat Head western short sleeve, Flat Head 3003xx, New Balance.

For me, the fragility of cotton stitching is worth the tradeoff of how it looks/fades and especially feels with age. Cotton stitching breaks in and softens in a way that other types don't, which especially makes a difference at areas like the chainstitched waistband. That being said, I don't mind repairing high-stress areas, like the hem, pocket edges, and rear center seam (which are always the areas on my jeans where the stitching tends to break) with more durable poly or poly/cotton thread.

Where it's really going to get weird is people taking photos of their actual jeans and then telling "AI" to enhance the fade. I could see this breaking fade competitions like Indigo Invitational (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.) The "top fades" already look pretty fake, so it could cause some real chaos if it's hard/impossible to tell if it's "AI" enhanced or not.

Flat Head Native Check western shirt, Flat Head 3003xx jeans, Wesco Mister Lou boots.

Astros cap, JCrew tee, Flat Head chambray western short sleeve, Hollows belt, Flat Head 3003xx, New Balance USA.

Freenote Hawaiian shirt, JCrew tee, Hollows belt, Flat Head 3003xx, Wesco 7500 boots.

I'm less familiar with Viapiana's work, but based on what I've seen, his stuff seems quite nice as well. I tend to think of him as more of a bespoke maker which I suppose seems like a slightly different category to me, but I've heard that recently he's stopped doing custom orders, which changes the game a bit.

I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but out of all the one/two-person brands I know of, I'd take Ande Whall, especially from before the earthquake or whatever destroyed his original workshop and he made jeans with hidden rivets and stuff. Ande's jeans were affordable and not $700, he actually made and delivered what you ordered, didn't sue you for putting pictures of his jeans in a book, had a unique design of his own instead of trying to be 1000% accurate repro of this one deadstock pair made for two weeks in May 1943, and was totally in control of his own thing instead of having a single retailer in charge of distribution that would hype his pants to the moon and back. That's a combination of factors that to me at least, is hard to beat. The denim community really did lose a real one with Ande.

Viberg ball cap, My Epic band tee, Hollows belt, Flat Head 3003xx, 70s Chucks.

RRL western shirt, Hollows belt, Buzz Rickson Original Spec 1930s chinos, John Lofgren Steadfast boots. I seriously love the fit (and everything else) about these chinos, getting a new, sized-up pair turned out to be a great call.

I've often told people in public I like their jeans. They've always responded enthusiastically, but I only do this when it's clear it's an enthusiast who's wearing a brand you'd only have on if you were really into it. Seeing selvedge and immediately assuming they're a fellow nerd is a mistake, it's common enough in general now that there are lots of people in Gap or Uniqlo jeans who would be weirded out if I approached them. That's less of a concern if I see a guy wearing Samurai or Iron Heart or whatever. The most energetic interactions I get with fellow nerds are cars - I'll have people on the other side of the median honk or flash their lights or wave at me when they see my Cressida, guys who are clearly JPN car nerds getting excited over something they can appreciate. Then again, cars are a bit more socially acceptable/"normal" for guys to be into than jeans, and only a nerd is going to see an MX73 and recognize it as something kind of special, so that's not surprising. There are lots of dudes out there wearing a Rolex or driving a BMW that they don't really know much about, because those are famous status-symbol type things that appeal beyond the OCD enthusiasts. If you're wearing some PBJ jeans or driving an R32, you're in pretty deep.

A big part of why TFH was so popular ~15 years ago is that back then, there was a lot less variety on the specialty denim market. TFH's denim was closely associated with dramatic fading, and pretty unique in how dark it was - Eternal was the only brand with a similar vibe. That was before the rise of retailers like Okayama Denim or Denimio that catered to the tastes of the Reddit/Instagram crowd and subsequent rise in over-engineered denim with highly exaggerated texture and color, and before the creation of most southeast Asian brands catering to a similar very heavy and abrasive sort of fabric. TFH had a reputation for being the denim that led to the Sickest Fades. Flat Head's denim has never stopped being great, but over time it came to occupy a sort of middle space in between the traditional/heritage style denim represented by Warehouse, Full Count, Denime, TCB, (most) Sugar Cane, etc. and heavily engineered denim of PBJ, Samurai, Oni, Iron Heart, and so on. The people wanting extreme fades gravitated toward more extreme denim, and those seeking more traditional jeans were less interested in brands like TFH as well. Finally, changing tastes in the community in terms of styling meant that TFH's arcuates/branding/etc. that had once looked cool to the streetwear crowd, were again either too much for traditionalists, or not enough for extreme fans. I think TFH could have stayed popular if they had followed the lead of other third and fourth-wave Japanese brands in catering to the more extreme tastes of international fans, but I have a pretty low opinion of 29 oz hyper-slub rainbow weft denim so I don't think this would have been worth it. I admire TFH for sticking to their guns and taking a generally more reserved approach to their fabric development than most brands. And in my opinion, the mid-late 2000s fabrics represented the height of pushing the boundaries of selvedge denim - I don't think modern gimmicky fabrics have surpassed TFH's 14.5 oz, Samurai's 15 oz Otokogi or 17 oz denim, PBJ's XX-011 or XX-005 denim, and so on. Along the way they made some missteps like with the ultrasuede stuff, but I think the impact of this on their popularity was inconsequential; this hardly made it outside of Japan, Pronto is the only retailer I can recall which carried jeans featuring those arcs, and the flashier back pocket designs generally played better in the Thai market back then anyway. I do think that dialing back the rockabilly look and going for a broader vintage basics aesthetic the last few years has worked well for them. Fits are also worth mentioning, TFH had trouble keeping on top of the whims of the international denim community. They had a relaxed tapered fit, the 3012, all the way back in 2013 but the timing was off; it was a few years too early, and seemed to flop. It had already been canceled by the time these fits were all the rage in the latter end of the 2010s. This has largely been resolved though and they have a pretty good lineup of fits at this point. I'm daily driving my 3003xx jeans and 6002W denim jacket, both old stock I got off Japanese auction sites. The 3003xx has to be my favorite fit I've ever worn, the leg is about the same as my 3005s but these jeans have a noticeably longer rise which leads to a more comfortable, better looking pair. And of course the painted arcs and red tab are very cool and quite rare at this point. I'll probably share some updates on those around the end of summer.

A little bit, I've only worn these about a month and a half so it's still pretty early, but they're not stiff/crunchy so much as they have the general heft/fuzzy feeling of fairly new unsanforized denim, qualities that give way to a soft coziness over time. I'm kind of intending for these to be my summer/warm weather jeans, like my Warehouse 1001xx had been for the last few years. I found the WH Banner denim to be the best summer denim I've ever worn, by far, even better than the much-lauded Full Count 13.7 oz denim. If this TCB denim ends up close to that same feel I'll be happy.

Flat Head western short sleeve, Flat Head leather jacket, Hollows belt, TCB Late S40s, Wesco Mister Lou.

Truck Heck tee, TCB Late S40s jeans, Vans sneakers.

Mitsubishi runs from "incredibly sick, cool cars" like the Lancer Evo IX to "fiberboard economy box trash" like... well, unfortunately, mostly everything they make nowadays.

I often get out of the habit of posting outfits in warm weather, which is dumb because I think I have plenty of good summertime fits. Here's my TCB Late S40s jacket which I'm wearing part-time right now; the TFH Type II is currently hibernating after a wash. This jacket is amazing, I love the denim, fit, and details. It's a size 42, so I was pleasantly surprised that it's got a T-back design like a larger size Type I. The chinos are my second pair of Buzz Rickson Original Spec, I felt the top block on my original size 31 pair was too small, so I went up to size 33 and these fit perfect! Easily the best chinos I've worn. TCB Late S40s jacket, Lone Flag tee, Hollows Rail belt, Buzz Rickson Original Spec chinos, New Balance sneakers, MX73.

Fake Japanese license plate I designed! My name in Kanji 海琉/Kairu/Kyle where the prefecture kanji would go My birth month/day 3/19 next to it, which is also in the correct 300-number range for a passenger car with > 2.0 L displacement, "Ro" hiragana for the first two letters of my last name And 77401, the zip code of where I grew up! Color is green on white, also accurate for a > 2.0 L displacement passenger car in Japan. It's all a bit silly and tongue in cheek, since, among other things, this is a US-market Cressida and not a JDM car (don't even get me started on people who use "JDM" to refer not to Japanese domestic models, but "any car by a Japanese manufacturer.") Big stupid monster trucks are virtually the default vehicle where I live, so you're not off by much! I frequently rant about the absurdities of giant bro-dozer truck culture, and my taste in personal vehicles, inclining toward retro luxury saloons, is very much the opposite of all that. Slammed Cressidas look cool, but I doubt they ride all that smoothly. I don't really want to sacrifice a comfortable, quiet ride for the sake of aesthetics, so I'd only go for a slightly lowered look. The way that I appreciate/use my car is a bit more in line with something like a Mercedes W123 or W124, Volvo 240 or 740, and that sort of thing.