You know you're addicted...

[Foxy2]

I, at one point, kept records as well - I see the point Kyle was making and fully support the point of "personal curiosity/satisfaction" as a good enough reason.

Hey, if I would be working in a store or for a brand that sells denim I would probably still do it considering it a "social experiment" (,hoping that the records might be of help to someone out there).

Scientifically, these records might be pretty circumstantial and inconclusive by itself, but I fail to see why that would be a problem to anybody on this forum!

[Maddogwellz]

Everybody should take some chill pills and not sweat it dewds.

[tmadd]

Unless I missed it, I think a huge reason for this argument about the keeping of days, that nobody has flat out stated is that the difference between being able to answer someone's questions about how much wear a pair of jeans has in a specific amount of days, or a fairly accurate guess of months is negligible.  You can say that it's in the spirit of being able to tell people with a very honest amount of detail, but I'd argue that even acknowledging the difference between 56 and 57 or 123 and 132 days of wear is conveying the wrong message to people that are genuinely curious about the timeline on which a specific pair of jeans age.  I never have better than an approximation within a month of how long I've been wearing a certain pair of jeans, and I've never sensed that anyone who asked me was disappointed by not having an more precise answer.  

 

That said, some of the coolest threads/posts/photos from super denim have revolved around meticulous days-of-wear keeping. Cotton Duck's prison-style tally stitches were an all time personal favorite.  Despite the fact that I'm glad the general tide of the discussion on Superdenim has moved away from super meticulous counting, I don't think anybody should be surprised or upset that it happens.  

 

The real answer to all of this is to forget about "rotations" and just wear the same pair of jeans every single day, the original mark of being truly addicted to denim. 

[fobsquad]

i think part of the reason is also due to the fact that some people speak English natively and can easily convey sarcasm with indignant responses while those who don't speak it natively are left to ingeniously interpret the response for their face value.

 

also worth mentioning that most Eastern languages place particular emphasis on the meaning of individual words(characters) while Western languages are generally more reliant on the context of the entire sentence.

[Double 0 Soul]

Im going to try a different approach today call it a rallying cry if you will, I hope it is better received.
 

What has happened to us all? we are supposed to be men, proper men, rugged denim clad men. Not the kind of men who take notes on their denim.
 

Our icons are other denim clad heroes... James Dean, Brando and the like you only need to see some of aho's photos in the denim photo thread to know i speak the truth.
 

Im sure Steve McQueen on the set of The Magnificent Seven never asked James Coburn how he got his fades.
 

We should follow their example, we should walk in their shoes,

Real men dont care about taking notes on denim wash cycles... Come on! lets throw away our note books, Im sick of this metrosexualism This is SuperDenim after all.
 

Who,s with me?

[Mr Black]

I'm with you, but ill need to check with my wife first

[Maynard Friedman]

If you're posting on this forum, it's already too late.

[Double 0 Soul]

If you choose my imagined denim path and forgo your note taking past i will sweeten the deal with a little silver fish that is wearing a pair of 501's that you can stick to the rear bumper of your car. Hopefully this will help to convert other note takers and show them the way to the true spiritual denim utopia.

[movingslow]

when you work for a company who makes jeans and still obsess/hoard too many other brands, which you never get to wear.

[Xstan]

  is this home ?

[HGS]

Who's carrying who?

[BrownMetallic]

^^staging your own ritual version of "the passion of the cross [crotch]" ? 

 

...  a little Catholic humor there,  sorry 

Edited September 28, 2013 by BrownMetallic

[denim-nimrod]

You know you're addicted when.... your idea of fun is going for a 10-mile run in your 21oz. jeans and red wings just to break them in so you can wear them everyday like normal people.

[the shivman]

Those things must reek to high hell after a 10 mile jaunt. Did your package look like the 4th member of the blue man group after that ish?

[jyoni]

googling "blue in green" sends you right to the store on the first hit and not to pages of information about Miles Davis.

[oomslokop]

...when i seriously think that getting into denim has made me more patient and accepting (in my head). at first it made me more obsessive, stressing out about first soak, measurement chart comparos, stitching imperfections, etc. then once i witnessed how a pair of jeans evolved--how ALIVE the process was!--i became more and more accepting that some things, fades, creases, hipflares, evolution of mankind, are beyond my control. [insert all your wabi-sabi mono no aware clichés at this here juncture.] but it's true! for the first time in my life i can start to accept that imperfection comes with creation and that decay is something to savour, not resist. in the age of the superconsumer, denim geekery has made me more aware of the act of consuming itself, all the phases of it--research, add to cart, unboxing (aka despair, ecstasy, more despair)--that it has actually made me feel as though i am less of a spender. i don't buy things willy-nilly anymore, both because i don't have access to ed's bank account and also because--this sounds ridiculously bourgeois to say--i have more respect for the act of consuming itself. i was in shanghai once and saw relatives going totally apeshit on a knock-off designer handbags shopping spree. that was when it dawned on me, what they were doing was no different to those countless nights i wasted browsing rakuten--they were trying, desperately, to still that heaving void inside that comes from being alienated from your own true feelings, the end product of a near-perfect capitalistic society. the only thing i've got over them is that i know, i am aware!, that that void is never gonna go away. not by adding infinite things to my cart for a thousand years.

[themonk18]

that was deep

[Mr-Bielby]

Like whoa dude

[Maynard Friedman]

... when you're selling your crack/smack/*rse to pay for new denim.

* thought I'd lower the tone from the philosophical/neo-existentialist discussion!

[Mr Black]

When you come back late from the pub having had to much to drink and a few too many lines and put up posts like that

[oomslokop]

... when, like, dude, where's my ooe?

[Geeman]

When you pack your car for a business trip and your jeans go on top of your suit.

[mf051404]

When you smell the butt portion on your jeans and say "still tolerable"

When you go to your room, remove your jeans and take a look at it from afar...then put it back on

When you take a macro shot of your jean's fibers, so you can see it further in detail after zooming in

When you keep your jeans in an enclosure with activated charcoal to get rid of the smell, and prevent your wife from washing it

When a thread title in sufu are in bold (new unread replies) and gives you some sort of excitement

When you suddenly developed impatience because your jeans seem to look the same everyday

When your google keywords always contain the words "denim" and "fade" and never get tired of seeing the same image results

[JohnM]

As a guy who's gone from buying Levi's 550's at JC Penney's to owning Samurai, Fullcount, Roy, Iron Heart, and other jeans in about a year, I have enjoyed the responses in this thread -- from oomslokop's thoughtful post to the shivman's reference to one's package resembling a member of the Blue Man Group after its owner runs 10 miles in 21 oz. jeans.

 

For the record Kyle, I also record how many soaks and washes my jeans have had.  True, Steve McQueen, Clint, Chuck Norris, Brando, and James Dean would never do this, but they probably never read superdenim either.  Plus, they're just actors, while we wear our denim in the real world.

 

Shoot, was that a cold or a warm wash last time?  If I agitate my jeans in the tub, will they get mad?

[okisan]

.... when you notice that the keys on your keyboard have a pale blue tint to them

[Mojique]

......when you don't have any other pants other than jeans and mourn lost pairs..

[Cold Summer]

Thanks for bumping this thread, I'd completely forgotten about this exchange and what a dick Double 0 Soul was.

3.5 years later I still track my wears and I've never regretted it. However I don't really track washes and I can't even recall of the top of my head how many my ST-120x had.

Personally I don't care about trying to be "authentic" and emulate James Dean/Marlon Brando/etc. These guys are really cool and all, but they wore jeans because that's what happened to be around, or they wanted to make some kind of rebellious statement. They were a totally different sort than guys interested in raw denim in the 21st century, and on top of that they were actors, which makes trying to piece together some sort of authentic image/philosophy a bit ridiculous. I don't care about any of that stuff, I'm a hobbyist, and if it wasn't for hobbyists then selvedge denim would be extinct. Being a hobbyist is no more ridiculous than constructing a $2500 coal miner cosplay while trying incredibly hard to seem like you aren't trying hard. 

At then end of the day, the reasonable conclusion is that there are a lot of different ways to enjoy nice jeans/mens clothing that really comes down to personal preference rather than some abstract philosophy.

[ColonelAngus]

I'm currently tracking wears on one pair of jeans. this is the first and only time i'll be doing this but it's more of an experiment than anything. I don't really care about achieving epic fades/honeycombs but I am curious how long it'll take for my jeans to wear in before I move onto the next pair.

[Mojique]

1 hour ago, Cold Summer said:

Thanks for bumping this thread, I'd completely forgotten about this exchange and what a dick Double 0 Soul was.

3.5 years later I still track my wears and I've never regretted it. However I don't really track washes and I can't even recall of the top of my head how many my ST-120x had.

Personally I don't care about trying to be "authentic" and emulate James Dean/Marlon Brando/etc. These guys are really cool and all, but they wore jeans because that's what happened to be around, or they wanted to make some kind of rebellious statement. They were a totally different sort than guys interested in raw denim in the 21st century, and on top of that they were actors, which makes trying to piece together some sort of authentic image/philosophy a bit ridiculous. I don't care about any of that stuff, I'm a hobbyist, and if it wasn't for hobbyists then selvedge denim would be extinct. Being a hobbyist is no more ridiculous than constructing a $2500 coal miner cosplay while trying incredibly hard to seem like you aren't trying hard. 

At then end of the day, the reasonable conclusion is that there are a lot of different ways to enjoy nice jeans/mens clothing that really comes down to personal preference rather than some abstract philosophy.

Everyone has their "thing"

 

raw denim is an evolving thing, and a very rewarding passion 

 

ive documented every pair I've owned since 2011(Too many, lots sold!)

[swiss-jeansfreak]

I'm raw denim addicted since 1973 and this will last until I myself will be faded away ha ha.

I always love authentic natural fadings which shows the power of denim evolution but would never ever do some extra fading stuff, for getting crazy fadings. I just wear them a lot until falling apart before giving them an eternal life in the little Jeansmuseum of heaviest fadings