Superblues

I checked the measurements and also anticipated it thanks to the peerless advice of The Flat Head's Kyle, so the fit is fine for me, but that's a small size 42 in some ways. I might try to take more photos at some point; you know, wear it.

So Superdenim, one of the few UK Stockists, are selling Real Mccoy sweats for £165 and falsely declaring them loopwheel.

Yep, it seems common for shops to describe non-loopwheeled clothing as loopwheeled. I wouldn't say the Superdenim shop is in the heart of this Japanese-workwear-whatever world (I'd say they don't care enough), but it's surprised me that even shops that are do it. If it's a case of them just making an error with the designation of the term, well, they ignore it when they know better and continue to falsely label stuff loopwheeled. It of course goes beyond error at that point and is just definitely, deliberately, misleading.

Basically, three and a half to four years' old:

Lee Japan 1966 101Z dry repro

Levi's 1947 501 dry repro

Levi's 1967 505 dry repro
Sugar Cane 1947 dry x 2

Don't give up on All The Pretty Horses. The dense language at the outset gives way to a plainer style as the adventure story kicks in. It's quite fucking addictive, actually. Even people I've dragged to books have gone on to read the rest of the trilogy OF THEIR OWN ACCORD. He's pretty traditional when all's said and done, but most of his novels are corkers and you might well end up tempted to check em out. Many are faster, shorter. The odd one is Suttree. It's pretty good. It's also the kind of huge repetitive book a writer writes when he's been really fucking depressed for years.

I'm reading Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. I'm on my phone so I can't be bothered to sort out an image. You should google it, though. The first edition looks lovely, as you'd expect, but there's some nice pulp-looking covers too. It's strange to be reading Kerouac at 40. I didn't bother with him at all seriously until I was 30 or something, though. I like his whole automatic writing schtick. All writers and writing are riddled with problems. It's just whether they also bring the good stuff. He does. Seems like many don't see it, or they think they see it, enough to smoke a joint and backpack through their gap year before discarding him as a coming-of-age writer riddled with problems. These people never really understood. Not sure what I'll read next. I've nearly finished this and I have to go away for a week soon so I'll need something else. Maybe a Graham Greene.

over halfway through with fyodor dostoevskys the brothers karamazov

He's such a lovely writer. That's one of the most impressive books I've read in theory - big book by old Russian writer - but it's just really enjoyable. Not as pacy as Crime And Punishment, but filled with wonder.

All Kafka's stories are corkers. The bastard.

Thank you so much for all this. I have a Joe McCoy plain grey loopwheel sweat, and of course I don't expect the difference between loopwheeled and non-loopwheeled T-shirts to be as strong as the difference between my Joe sweat and non-loopwheeled sweatshirts, but still. OK, Flat Head is honest quality at least, and now I know where I am with it I'm going with a Flat Head loopwheel T. Plus I'm a sucker for rockabilly imagery (I'm not a coffee drinker so that one aside, the diner and bowling prints do it for me even more than the hotrod/auto ones). In sum: sweet.

Edit: typo (my stuff is hard enough to read as it is)

ironheartfan - I haven't bought one yet, but yep. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I get the impression that a shop like Self Edge does a lot more good for this little world than others. There's confusion, and mistakes have happened one way or another, but it seems to me that other businesses have made many more mistakes with the designation of the term loopwheel. Other businesses have certainly encouraged confusion. Even on an obvious level, it's annoying how many try to shift sweaters with the similar word "loopback". I don't have much money for the foreseeable future. I want to get my choice right. (I have plenty of decent, non-loopwheeled T-shirts. Too many, really, but I have em now and that's that.)

Ben - thanks so much for the info, including sizing. There's a TM T on the Self Edge website that's on my very short list!

Thanks for this. Yep, civility is the best way online, in reality and thought. I manage it some of the time. I understand there must be a lot of ins, lot of outs to all this. It must be a professionally delicate area, and that might well limit what I hear. It of course must matter at least to some people if a good part of why they've bought a T-shirt is because they think it's loopwheeled. Perhaps this'll help others try to get a better sense of what is and isn't. I value integrity above expertise, and I'm not questioning anybody's. I just don't want this to push me down the rabbit hole. I don't want to derail much more, but I like the look of The Strike Gold T-shirts too (which I think Kiya might've had a hand in developing), but I end up thinking, "Yeah, but how do I KNOW they're loopwheeled?" If I don a tin hat and start talking about how The Matrix is a documentary, I blame all this. I've seen Kyle say elsewhere that the TD T-shirts are definitely loopwheeled. Black mint too?

I take it you're from Irvine? My girlfriend is originally from Indiana and I've seen an SG T-shirt with a relevant print to freak her out too. She's already troubled enough by kids wearing Carhartt on the streets round here.

I apologise for any oversights that I make here by not finding relevant answers on this forum. I've pieced together what I can, but it could be that I've missed the answers I need in some obvious chunk of the loopwheeled T-shirt thread/Flat Head thread/Self Edge thread.

I want a loopwheeled T-shirt. I like the look of The Flat Head T-shirts. I just honestly can't work out which are actually loopwheeled. The "THC" Flat Head T-shirts aren't loopwheeled, apparently. Kyle, from Flat Head, posted on another forum a few months ago to confirm that the THC Flat Head T-shirts aren't loopwheeled.

Kiya, from Self Edge, has said on this thread (about a month after Kyle's assertion) that "Flat Head stopped making the THC series as loopwheeled this season". However, Kyle said on the other forum that he was told by the company that "the specs on these tees haven't changed over time", ie that they were never loopwheeled.

Somebody rudely called Kiya out on his assertion that "Flat Head stopped making the THC series as loopwheeled this season". Kiya said that he'd wait for Kyle to reply, but Kyle never addressed the point, only the rudeness.

I've seen what look exactly like some of the Flat Head T-shirts that appear on the Self Edge website, which the Self Edge website describes as loopwheeled, on Rakuten. They're listed as THC T-shirts on Rakuten, and on Rakuten there seems to be no hint that they're loopwheeled (some of the descriptions of other non-THC Flat Head T-shirts on Rakuten do seem to say that they're loopwheeled). Some of these THC T-shirts on Rakuten date from before this year, if that really matters.

I don't want to get sidelined with questions of quality, how overrated loopwheeled is as an indicator of quality etc - I'm sure they're all great - but I'm specifically after a loopwheeled T-shirt so I want to know specifically which T-shirts are and aren't loopwheeled. I want to know if the T-shirts on the Self Edge website that it describes as loopwheeled definitely are loopwheeled.

Kiya once said many years ago on another forum about purported loopwheeled clothes: "It's insane to me that companies get away with advertising that their fabric is one thing when it's not, but i'm convinced that these companies themselves were fooled by their factories or textile suppliers into thinking that the fabric was really loopwheeled." Is there a chance that an insane, all-round mistake has happened here on certain T-shirts?

No evo pics I'm willing to post, but I'm 40. … I don't think I'll ever be able to let those 1947s go, but I'll certainly bear you in mind should this change.

The crease/wear on your Sugar Canes are amazing, and that M-65 is extra lovely. I have a Chinese Alpha. They get plenty of sneers online, and I can understand, but mine gets nothing but compliments in real life. It doesn't look *anywhere* as near as good as that, though, that's for stone cold certain. I guessed The Real McCoy's. I'm now trying to guess the boots. (I do love M-65s, and sensibly I understand that in many ways the choice for me should've been vintage.)

Ah, OK. Wow. You know your stuff.

All this talk has definitely inspired me to put mine on now.

Apologies. I only have three impediments to taking decent photos: equipment, expertise and will. They're my Sanders rockabilly Bullitt boots on the ends of my legs, just in case anybody needs to know.

Double O: I did. Maybe I can find the name, for what it's worth. Your theory about demand stopping jeans allocated for washes sounds the most plausible explanation. Perhaps this is more unlikely to happen with newer batches, perhaps Sugar Cane is more on top of what the market wants.

"H" has meant to stand for "hard wash" for at least three years, I know that much. But yeah, the Japanese person I bought them from said ones with all endings, "A", "N" and "H", could actually end up being non-wash. You know, just to make things nice and simple. God knows if it's still the case. It's annoying, really. Every day I moan to my girlfriend, "Why-O-why can't jean serial codes be more consistent?" I'm pretty sure she's planning on leaving me for some reason, by the way.

Their rarity gives me a few worries, one of which is that they might one day wear out. There's that Shakespeare quote about fashion wearing out clothes before the man. I hope that's true because, after all, who cares about fashion? Fingers crossed these Sugar Cane will last a good while yet anyway...

I have a pair of non-wash 1947s. They have the red tab and broken arcuate. I got them deadstock about three years ago. The label says SC41947H, though. They were saved before they met the terrible fate of a hard wash. Maybe something to bear in mind.

I love the henley, sourced by Mister Freedom, that Ryan Gosling wears in Drive. It's a bastard. It compelled me to spend a load of money on the similar Merz b. Schwanen 103.

The Killer Inside Me (2010)