Cold Summer

 Cross-post from the leather thread, showing off my TFH wallet rig. I bought the key holder directly from TFH almost three years ago. The long wallet I found on Mercari. I like how nicely the patina lines up, even though the wallet is cordovan and the key holder cowhide.

1 minute ago, Cold Summer said:

Here’s my wallet stuff. 

• Flat Head Shinki cordovan long wallet
• Flat Head harness leather key holder
• Old Point box weave kangaroo leather chain (similar to ones TFH used to make)

Here’s my wallet stuff. 

• Flat Head Shinki cordovan long wallet
• Flat Head harness leather key holder
• Old Point box weave kangaroo leather chain (similar to ones TFH used to make)

Long time no see @Superstar! Always thought your wallet was super cool.

I actually just picked up a Flat Head cordovan long wallet used off Mercari, for something like 1/5th the price of a new one, with the same concho as my key holder, and a box weave wallet rope - I once again have a ridiculous over-the-top Amekaji wallet rig, and it feels so good. Pictures coming soon (hopefully later today!)

• Flat Head Blood Orange western flannel
• Flat Head 6002W denim jacket
• Samurai S3000vx
• Wesco Mister Lou

Beautiful work Duke, I especially like the design of the bag. Unique yet understated. Always enjoy seeing your crafts on here.

• Flat Head Evergreen western flannel
• Equus belt
• Flat Head 3005
• Wesco 7500

I certainly benefit from being tall and thin. Aside from the fact that I like their details and design the best, it works out nicely that TFH shirts fit my body type the best, generally. I've tried lots of shirts by other brands that fit like potato sacks and the arms were still too short.

Although a lot of folks complain about the shoulders being too wide, I've come to embrace this aspect of their shirts and like the V-shape silhouette better than the narrow shoulders on some other brands.

Just a couple shots of TFH things I’ve worn recently in WAYWT posts. 
 

• Flat Head Native Check western shirt
• Freenote Cloth RJ-1 jacket
• Samurai S3000vx
• Wesco Mister Lou horsehide

Flat Head Western chambray

Real McCoys A-2

Equus belt

Flat Head 3005

Wesco 7500

Freenote flannel shirt

Flat Head 6002W denim jacket

Iron Heart Tochigi belt

Flat Head 3005

Wesco Mister Lou horsehide 

• Flat Head down jacket
• Flat Head herringbone flannel
• Flat Head 3005
• Iron Heart Tochigi belt
• Mesco Mister Lou horsehide

Awesome work on those b_F! I think that's just about the best-faded pair I've seen from you. I know you enjoy trying lots of different jeans - which is great, I'm sure we can all agree at this point there's no one "right" way to do selvedge denim, etc., and it really comes down to what you enjoy. But this really showcases the magic of what can happen when you stick with a single pair for an extended period of time.

To my eyes it looks like a more aggressively textured version of WH's Banner denim - almost a cross between that, and the 14.5 oz denim from the 800xx. Good stuff.

• Flat Head Mustard flannel western shirt
• Warehouse x Rocky Mountain Featherbed down vest
• Hollows Rail belt
• Flat Head 3005
• Chup socks
• New Balance 996 MIUSA

I loved the editorial, great stuff. Just the other day I was looking at the very first Self Edge lookbook from 2007 or whatever (which is still on the site!) and thinking about how great a lot of those fits look. It was a bold and original approach taking Japanese brands like Flat Head which everybody kind of associated with rockabilly and western wear totally out of context and merging it with streetwear. Wearing Flat Head houndstooth shirts and snow zips with Nikes sounds kind of crazy on paper but it's actually really cool, and I feel like the contemporary western denim scene could probably learn something from that. I'm still disproportionately influenced by some of the style Sidney Lo wore in his WAYWT project.

I discovered raw denim with Nudie in late 2009 and never owned anything by Imperial, but the new jeans look awesome and I love the story behind it.

Are you guys getting annoyed yet that I’m posting outfits daily now? I can stop if you want. 

• Freenote Cloth flannel shirt
• Real McCoys A-2 jacket
• Flat Head hickory stripe pants
• Equus belt
• Wesco 7500

I was looking at the FW 1947 the other day, too. They look like nice jeans and seem like they could be a good fit.

But eh, don't need more jeans, and to be honest my WH 1001xx have me completely satisfied on the vintage-style jean angle. I feel like anything beyond that is "better" past the point of diminishing returns, which is why I don't own Ooe or something similar. So unless some crazy good deal presented itself, no FW in the near future for me. But I do like seeing their jeans in action I guess.

"Relaxed tapered" cuts are usually designed to fit larger waist sizes well. If you wear a size 36, your jeans probably taper to a 7.75" hem or something reasonable, but get that same pair in my size, 31, and it'll be something completely ridiculous like 6.5".

This makes me wonder why don't jeans makers just make cuts with a particular hem width (say, 21 cm), and for smaller sizes it's more of a straight fit, and taper increases as you size up? It would fix a common complaint about straight fits, which is that they're too wide in bigger waist sizes.

• JCrew cashmere top coat
• Flat Head houndstooth western flannel
• Iron Heart belt
• Flat Head 3005
• Wesco Mister Lou

@dc2020 Do it! It's a pair of jeans I like so much, that I'm on my second pair (the first being far from destroyed or anything like that, but I opted for a different approach to this pair.) TFH flannel looks great on you too. Hopefully people are starting to remember how rad their shirts are.

Speaking of which...

• Flat Head western flannel
• Flat Head down jacket
• Hollows belt
• Flat Head 3005
• John Lofgren Steadfast boots

Found one of my all-time favorite TFH shirts in my size on a Japanese site for cheap. Medium weight flannel. Almost like new condition. Perfect fit. Unique and awesome color. Hexagon buttons! It doesn't get much better than this.

• Flat Head HNW-61W Emerald flannel
• Freenote RJ-1 Riders Jacket
• Iron Heart Tochigi belt
• Flat Head 3005
• Wesco Mister Lou

I've been trying to get back into posting outfits daily, as you've probably noticed.

• Flat Head 6002W denim jacket
• 3Sixteen 15th anniversary crosscut flannel
• Equus Belt
• Flat Head 3005
• Wesco 7500

Great article, lots of interesting points raised. I'm a pragmatic guy, if there's a shirt or something I've been eyeing and want to get anyway, and there's a sale for Labor Day or Black Friday or whatever, then I might pull the trigger on it. But rarely if ever do "sales" make me want something I didn't previously just because it's cheap. I hate that kind of artificially contrived demand. I'd rather pay full price for something I really like than get a deal on something I don't.

Something I like about buying things from the kinds of specialty shops that sell the stuff we like around here is that it feels outside the mainstream consumerism infrastructure. I don't watch TV, I don't know what music or movies or whatever are "popular," what clothes are "stylish" or "on trend," pretty much everything I "consume" and involve myself in, is far beyond the city limits of what constitutes mainstream "consumerism." So keeping-up-with-the-Joneses "sales" feel like a concession to the typical normie consumer treadmill, now that I think about it.

This is the operative quote for me:

Quote

The way Dan himself tries to square this circle is to not buy pricey slappers on sale but, rather, buy them secondhand. “It’s fun to feel like I’m hunting for things,” he said, “it’s fun to engage in a different layer of commerce, and I feel better about buying a piece from another person, rather than from a huge store where I have no idea who the money’s actually going to.”

This really resonates with me, I've had more "fun" hunting for personal grail Flat Head shirts and such on Japanese sites over the past couple years than anything else, and I've gotten great deals in the process. It's much more thrilling to me to get a great looking flannel made fifteen years ago, than most new stuff coming out. And I've gotten some great deals on these things too. Specialty secondhand is one segment of this whole thing that gives me some hope, I guess, and feels like a mode of operation outside our usual dichotomy where you're a Marxist who wants to tear down The System or a Capitalist who loves them big corporations. It's like a throwback to an older, pre-industrial, more honest sort of commerce. Good retail stores manage to preserve some of that vibe, I think. S&S sold out a new $340 Ooe release today in about five minutes, from a pragmatic standpoint it's easy to see, "Pfft, these guys suck at business, they should be selling these jeans for $550, supply and demand bro!" It takes some integrity to say, this is an awesome product and we want to offer it at a fair price and not just shake you down for as much as humanly possible.

But at the end of the day I'm not making a huge sacrifice paying full retail, if I want/need to. I'm buying jeans and shirts, not a Rolex. The cost of the clothing items I'm into is a lot more than buying a shirt from H&M, but not really that much of a sacrifice, especially considering I'll resell things I don't like as much over time and get some of that money back. I feel like I get a lot more out of it than I'm putting into it, even at full price.