ATWM

I’m feeling a little inspired by this but need some 136s first…

WMJ getting some miles in the Lake District this week. I thought England was supposed to be cloudy and rainy?!

^ I’ve had to do this on my pair 3 times now. That said, I had to do that on my OA’s too once I was back bike commuting more. I stitched WMJ pair last about 6 weeks ago and have put quite a few miles on since without any issue, though the fabric will need darning at some point, so I’m swapping them out for the ride sometimes. Whiskers on my pair seem about normal for me, fwiw. But pretty much no combs. edit - actually have had to do this repair on basically every pair I’ve ever owned that had cotton thread, so for me, this isnt remarkable for wmj. Except Freewheelers. Are we sure Freewheelers isn’t poly cotton?! Ha.

^ I get this and love the personal response. blue / blue is usually better, I’ll concede that point. But sometimes you’d just rather different pants. Anyways, I used to wear black denim all of the time. Just black 511s. It was pretty much the standard in the art / punk circles I used to be in more, and I do still like monochrome top to bottom. Blue jackets were widely accepted on top of that, almost never raw though, and this was pretty separate from metal circles. I’m not a big metal fan (although some of it, yes), but generally if I’m going to accidentally evoke some bygone visual trope I’d much rather evoke punk or even metalhead than cowboy - not that really think either much applies (although I do love a good double denim, so I’m sure what other people see may evoke cowboy sometimes, but whatever).

the shop got off with a good deal!

Nope - I’ve seen it fly when the jacket both are pretty beat to hell. Not my favorite but in the realm of the doable there is much worse out there. Much better than loafers and jeans, for example 😇 And @aho yeah I did.

^ and here I thought we meant coffee.

It’s on the steeper side but just want to point out if you missed it that OA is releasing a black pair with S+S. Their’s is a black / white weft. That’s the biggest difference with black denim is it’s more common to see black / black, but they do fade differently than the black / white. I think I tend to prefer the faded black/white examples I’ve seen a bit better, but haven’t done that myself (yet). I’ve hoarded a few black pairs over the years (TCB, FW, SC, FullCount) - out of these I like the sugar cane and the Freewheelers RB the best but they’re all basically unworn so take it for what it’s worth. I don’t really find black jeans harder to fade than indigo. Just like some indigo is quicker than others, same with black sulphur dyes. I also don’t really find them less versatile, but I guess that sort of depends on the person and what else they like to wear. If I’m not wearing a denim jacket I like a lot of neutral or monochrome tops most of the time - greys, beiges, whites, blacks. Black jeans go with that stuff - just maybe not so amazingly with blue denim, but I’ve seen it work too depending on the stage of wear. Sort of a less recommended brand here but Indigofera’s gunpowder denim I like and is more easily available.

^ looks fine to me. Tender x3. This was a favorite fit from a few years ago, still is, really.

Not Denime, can't say because I haven't had them. And I didn't even say old Levi's - just Levi's in general. Which is to say, my WH pair reminds me the most of older non-selvedge 501's and 511's I've had (that are long gone), from the the denim itself to the shallower pocket bags and back pocket shape and the overall fit and feel. One exception being the cotton stitching on the WH pair. I'm sure this notion could be picked apart, but just they just remind me the most of them out of anything else. I don't have any vintage pairs to compare with, so I can't say I would say the same about those.

I like your deep pursuit of one brand for the most part, there’s an appeal there for me (I am just genuinely torn between my 3 loves of Tender, Freewheelers and Ooe and can’t commit..yet). I’ve got one pair of WH and while I like most everything about them and they’re at a great faded stage, more than any other pair they feel like they were made to show their age quickly, at the real expense of quality. It could just be my pair, but I can’t get past it. The other thing is for whatever reason they strike me as the most dead ringer Levi’s you can find out of all the options - and I actually like the little flairs of differentiation in other makers. Modern Denime sort of struck me in the same way, though I’ve never handled a pair.

Agreed, I quite enjoyed the latest email. And am looking forward to what is next. Also excited that the shop down the street from me is going to stock some Tender stuff I hear … amazing, I can go try things on and get something while on a bike ride in town and picking up groceries from the farm stop. Probably can only do that once a year, but still. The perfect scenario, really.

Knowing your current limits compared to your past ones is one of the hardest things to do as you grow…older.

^ I mean in YT’s defense no one ever came out for the better having watched ‘Merican tourists go dining on local fare. I mean what sort of free time do you have!? In seriousness though, this is the last internet community I’m a part of - other than a bunch group text messages with people in my outside of computers real life - probably why I comment so damn much these days. I’ve deleted everything else and it was an adjustment at first but I’d do it 10 out of 10 times. It’s becoming more and more of a wasteland, the early internet is essentially gone to my mind, so I try to just move on when I’ve got the presence of mind to do so.

Yep, I’m all about it - all about the spirit of it, and often unexpected stuff works well. Sometimes it doesn’t, but every maker knows that’s gonna happen on the way to good ideas.

^somehow this falls squarely back in the nope category for me. Damn looks cozy tho 😎

@redragon I’ll agree. Still don’t love them but the rough edges and chukka cut make quite a difference to me here.

I like some (what some probably consider) weird shit. All about experimentation. Probably even regularly wear a few items that fall in “no way” category for others. But there are certain aesthetic collisions that I just cannot get past. One of those is the idea of jeans with country club wear, for lack of a better term. It never works for me, personally, but I very rarely see it work elsewhere. Part of this is the fact that jeans are the sort of functional antithesis of what those clothes have typically signaled. Country clubs generally don’t even allow denim - it’s because of an aversion to a working class look, and it carries on today. On that note, the hardest denim look to pull off well is the Ivy look. Of course, some do it, but it’s damn rare (in my dumb opinion). Joafers are the worst possible version of this. Loafers with jeans are bad enough. Combining the two into one object is like ketchup and peanut butter. I’m sure someone somewhere loves it but there’s going to be a common enough response to the idea of it. It’s another take on what I think is one of the most unfortunate trends in menswear over the past decade - that is trying to put dress shoe uppers on casual shoe soles. I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. Well, you can’t have it both ways and look good, at least. I get that this doesn’t much matter for their market. That’s fine. There may be bad stuff in the shoe thread (it’s not one I much follow, so I don’t know) but I really can’t imagine much worse that isn’t actually an attempt at humor. Humor is cool though. Am I reading way too much into this? Sure!

^ This is just an opinion, but those are very bad.

Adding to the gardening talk in the contest thread - I spend some time mostly each spring trying to set our now mostly established pollinator garden up for success. Light layer of mulch to spread this year after deadheading all of last years growth, and still some light weeding to do my best to keep out invasives. Lots of alliums, bluestar, goldenrod, false indigo (yellow), coneflowers, sedges, butterfly weed - I’m forgetting some - and a stray milkweed shoot setting up here. The goal is basically to have a little bit of prairie - mostly natives - in the front yard instead of grass. We have a (comparatively at least) small lawn as it is but happy to have even less here. Bonus of my favorite tree a weeping cherry in full bloom. Okay well a tie for my favorite with out black walnut. I was wearing the contest jeans but no pic of that!

@bartlebyyphonics I’m really sorry for your loss. Weird transition but you showed a lot of info, I can get glimpses of it but I am curious what was your paper on? I wonder if you and a friend of mine are in related pursuits. edit - scratch that I see the slides are from other papers.

I do too, but, well, things get pulled in weird directions sometimes. It’s probably a damning sign of the times I guess that I even felt the need to qualify that. But glad you’re well.

@Talan I’ve seen you mention your situation a few times here now and I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the insanity your country is going through. This is a nonsense thread, and that indeed is nonsense. Unfortunately I’ve heard a few firsthand accounts of things since this all started from some Ukrainian friends and just…yeah. It’s hope it ends soon and that you stay safe. @Double 0 Soul I think the reason this forum has stayed sane, in part, is the no politics policy (hopefully acknowledgement of being in a war and it sucking is not considered as such) - and people coming together around a common interest. 4 Chan, at least from what I understand, is quite a different beast. I think my household was a relatively early adopted of the internet. Probably logged on in 1995 or so for games then - I went through all of the shit, starting on AOL Instant Messenger. Yes MySpace and early Facebook. There used to be a sense of wonder and discovery and a lot humor and just amazing weirdness. Tumblr was sort of the beginning of the end in my personal recollection. The commercialization of everything did indeed make all the good stuff much harder to find. Like a funky town with good affordability might have a ton of strange shops and co-ops but then it gets killed when too a critical mass of people become interested. Though I had started earlier, I really learned photography on a forum called skateboardphotography.com in 2004 or so - it was run by a German dude and was a pretty tight ship with scathing critiques and a real attitude of wanting to improve amongst the posters. Some skilled photographers were on there and shared their industry experience working for mags like Thrasher and Transworld. It launched a few solid careers in photography. I learned more on that forum - with regards to the craft of photography - than I did in university or in graduate school for art - and mostly because the critical culture was very tough but very fair and with a common goal. Defensiveness would essentially get you bounced. You could disagree, but you’d have to show why in your work to make the argument. It’s amazing how gentle the critiques have to be in institutions now. That’s a side rant, but yeah. There were a lot of good threads on technical topics with film, processing, lighting and all of it (before digital was very good). All member generated and highly relevant. We had to pay a subscription fee of like $25 or something, which felt like a big ask for a bunch of grimey broke skaters. I remember after just about a year the founder just took the site offline with no warning and ran off with a bunch of new subscriber’s fees. Another forum followed it but it was nowhere near as good and the community was too big and chaotic. Since then I’ve made it a point to make sure anything I really care about online is something I am hosting myself. @shredwin_206 yea - similarly if I were in your shoes I’d probably be in Carhartts or Dickies etc. (I can’t pull off Wranglers)

In a curious conflict I was told by S+S that the black anniversary jeans follow typical OA sizing - which is in opposition to the above description. They told me this info was straight from the duo themselves and that they were going with their normal OA size. Black OA jeans were one of the few bucket list items I've concocted for myself that I will get if issued no matter the timing (another is if they ever redo the cossack jacket), so I pre-ordered a pair with planning them to shrink FROM tag, as per usual for OA jeans. I won't be shocked if I have to modify my order.

There’s all this, above, but also I think so many beautiful vintage pairs really were before a time before commercial washers (and especially dryers) were available. I’ve been known to dry my jeans sometimes but in the end it’s pretty reliable that I find jeans look better when the denim is almost or always hang dried and not electrically cooked, regardless of the workload they’re put under. Just preference, but I do think there is a sweet spot that isn’t just totally beating up like one might a cheap pair.