mapz

fuuuuuuuuuuck i've been crazy busy. but still rocking the jeans almost everyday. digging everyone's updates. anyway, my work had this artist draw amusing caricatures of us with a pokemon of our choosing. here's mine. i thought ryo and hiro would get a kick out of this. i was wearing the ooes when my picture taken for the artist:

check those fades, and those serious double cuffz.

....but yeah, real updates forthcoming, haha.

wow huge prize. thanks christian! now if i can get some natural light here...maybe i can take some decent pics. been like 2 weeks of gray gray gray, trying to catch the sun.

and misterh, you'll be happy to know i still have that duck lighter.

excellent updates. love seeing pics the inscrutable land that is japan. must go back. thanks for sharing @red!

@aho BRO! birchwood? that's one of my favorite spots in the city.

great news congrats, flash. big things ahead, for sure.

MisterH MVP. My pair has been seeing wear here and there, so I'm gearing up for one or two more updates before 2012 comes to a close.

such a beautiful day over here. a lot of sunshine so i decided to take a few snaps on the way out to breakfast.

i've already washed these guys once. it really is surprising how soft & pliable the denim is - tough-wearing yet super comfortable once they begin to break in. i bike about 8-10 miles a day throughout the week, so my pair really loosens up. probably going to keep on a bi-monthly wash cycle.

beach time:

and dry time:

dropping in to say hi to the LF fam. i'm on holiday in france - with the ooe yofukutens and ducks in tow. double duty ha. some good sun around these parts - slippin' on the ducks tomorrow so i suppose i'll be seein' ya'll soon.

hey all. greetings from france!

the lady friend and i are currently on a late summer holiday in montalivet, a small beach town off the atlantic ocean about 2 hours northwest of bordeaux. late in the tourist season, the town is virtually empty and we're enjoying some much needed R&R. but no rest for the wicked, i suppose, as i'm also spending some time catching up on freelance writing projects that have piled up in the states.

jeans are doing well - fabric is settling in oh so nicely. just a quick update for now - expect more later i guess. nothing awfully exciting, just lots of wine and cheese ha.

front of our beach villa - a lovely verandah:

the sitting room:

lounge mode:

random deet shot:

That looks pretty crazy mapz. Did you actually make discerning picks for your haul, or did you just grabs few in the frenzy?

good old fashion crate digging. i’m inclined to soul, funk, jazz and general weirdness, though. because of the prices i dragged my girlfriend along and had her shopping strictly by album art, ha. that yielded interesting results. between the two of us we snatched about 50 records, then I just whittled the selection down to 27.

That Milt jackson Sunflower LP is good

yes – that might be my favorite pick-up! line-up is a real treat: milt, herbie hancock, freddie hubbard, ron carter and billy cobham AND an orchestra!? really moody, orchestral but picks up with latin rhythms and grooves.

woke up early on a saturday to be first in line at a sidewalk sale - empty train platforms:

a local radio station made news in chicago when it announced plans to sell its whole record collection. my favorite record store, dusty groove, bought the majority of the lot. it was estimated about tens of thousands of records from the 1950s onwards were in the archive - and dusty groove held an epic sidewalk sale to unload a lot of it to the public. 50 cent LPs and CDs and 25 cent 45s! the line was about 150 heads deep, spanning probably 2 city blocks:

it was quite the scene - people descended on the records like birds of prey. they weren't in alphabetical order or categorized - just stacks and stacks and stacks of records. a lot of people just took claim to whole crates, and nimble cats pulled boxes from underneath the tables and dragged them onto the street:

in the end i walked away with 27 LPs for $13:

this morning i made my way to the renegade craft fair. handmade, DIY crafts and all that. i just did a little browsing, and visited some friends who had booths. came across a place that offers leatherwork classes in the city. talked to the guys and said they source some of their stuff from horween. not my aesthetic i assume, but intriguing nonetheless. might have to take a "101" class if the price is right:

and a fit:

happy labor day to my fellow americans. some fit pics today. as it's been made well aware by now, it's shrink city with this denim. the 02 cut is the most "relaxed" pair i own, but the fit couldn't be any more appeasing for a guy who digs slim cuts.

again, my pair is super simple. pretty much went WWII yellow cotton throughout except for some orange cotton yarn at the belt stitch, crotch, fly, hip and back pocket entrance. oxidized copper rivets with concealed rivets at back. hickory stripe lined pocket bags. love the simplicity - these are never coming off.

threw them in the machine at hottest setting, then into the tub for a one-hour soak. that did the job in getting a lot of that shrinkage out, but i think they can go a bit more. i love how soft these are feeling. just the soak pic for now - will get to posting a proper fit pic later on today!

^^amen, arc. amen.

and i'm with aho in soaking the night before.

oh man it's getting real in here. i received my pair on thursday. like some of you guys i went with the 02 cut with really basic deetz - used the 01 as my template and tweaked from there. i hope everyone gets their pairs in time. here are mine hamming it up for the cam:

decided for a subtle personal touch with my initials on the back pocket:

one more from ryo and hiro to whet appetites. GET READY.

robbie congrats to you and yours.

these are from 2 weeks ago when i was in st. louis, missouri. still going strong, i've been wearing them about 4-5 days a week. finding it hard to snap them in the right light to fully capture the progress but they're going in the wash today so i'll snap a few after.

and dudes! shameless plug but what the hell - if you have an iPad you should grab a copy of the free issue from alarm magazine. they were doing a quarterly book but are switching over to a bi-monthly print magazine. they're doing two special digital issues to relaunch. you can find me in there. check it here.

also - check the fresh ink - just done a week ago (duckz in the shot).

woah so awesome. really excited and happy to see some craft work being done in the philippines! i'll be visiting sometime early next year - i'm interested in finding out more.

^stragglers gonna strag. hope you guys can pay up soon.

more teaser/production photos from ryo and hiro, this time via instagram. a nice little detail shot of my pair - the left back pocket! too nice. the photo gives you a good idea of what's to come with that #91, as well.

hollows would rep if i could. those smoke jumps are way too nice for our own good. killin' it with the pictures, too.

shhhhiiiiiit i pulled the trigger and just...

see ya'll on the other side!

edit: anyone else still not have the power to rep?

^yeah this is unbearable at the moment. i just confirmed all of my details and am now patiently waiting for my invoice. after all the premature concerns, OOE definitely seems to be on top of things and right on schedule.

i love moving! good luck, robbie. it'll be fun reassembling all your cool vintage shit in a new space.

Hey Mapz, that's the biggest problem in shirting now a days everybody's tripping over the same Japanese fabric suppliers, kind of why I didn't do any woven shirts for spring. I was hoping for a stronger reaction to the 12 oz tartan twill work shirts from last fall but they were kind of a sleeper although it has been a Left Field staple in Japan for about 10 years as well as made in the US. I don't think people could appreciate the fabric without touching it. Man, totally slept on the thread Andrew since I was just in LA, saw some cool bands at the wiltern and the Satalite.sorry for the nonindigo selvedge post but just wanted to follow up on that. C

yeah i figured that much. the fabric suppliers side of things is all too interesting - i'd love to just be in a room with all of it, going around nerding out on fabrics all day. but i'm guessing it must be agony making decisions. but after seeing it on ADH, i must say i dig the LF run better - short sleeves seem to make more sense for the fabric, and i prefer button-down collars.

its 100 degree weather and sunny out where i am. thought it a good time to take the first summer time snaps of my progress. one hand wash, one machine wash later...

yup just sent my e-mail out. that was a trip! 02 cut, 01xx base details with a few contrast tweaks.