WW2 repro / detailed jeans

[Dr_Heech]

1945 pocket flasher with For over 85 years ticket, so a circa 1957 501XX model. Courtesy of Fake Alpha..

 

 

Tried to zoom in a little

 

Edited June 21 by Dr_Heech

[beautiful_FrEaK]

Yeah I saw those as well. No mention of actual weight, yet "everyone" claims the denim got heavier in WW2 (and thereafter).

[Dr_Heech]

26 minutes ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

Yeah I saw those as well. No mention of actual weight, yet "everyone" claims the denim got heavier in WW2 (and thereafter).

Exactly.  We go from Nine ounce in For over 60 (c.1932) years and then Ten Ounce in the For over 70 years (both types, c.1942) and the For over 80 years tickets(c.1952). Yet in the For over 85 years ticket, Levi's just put in made from 'Top weight denim', no actual weights were specified. 

[Maynard Friedman]

Slightly off topic here but worth mentioning…

Wasn’t there a lack of clarity surrounding the actual weight of selvedge denim? I understand this is based on the fact that denim and other fabrics are (or were) generally attributed weight by the square yard, ie 12oz was theoretically the weight of a square yard of denim (pre-wash).

However, I’ve heard the quoted weights for early Levi’s jeans were based upon a yard of fabric length, which would only have been approx 30” wide (from a shuttle loom) and therefore less than a square yard and consequently lighter. This may be why some of the early pairs (late 18th/early 19th centuries) were (possibly mis-) quoted as 9-10oz, whereas in reality, miners would have required something heavier and more resilient, perhaps more akin to the 12oz denim of the 40s pairs. By this possible miscalculation, a 10oz yard of denim was only 5/6th of a square yard (36” x 30”) and would actually equate to a 12oz square yard.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge can confirm or deny.

[Dr_Heech]

..

Edited July 21 by Dr_Heech

[beautiful_FrEaK]

So, did someone buy the Gardener 1943XX jeans?

https://store.spiraljeans.jp/de-eu/products/gardener_1943xx-コピー

[yung_flynn]

4 hours ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

So, did someone buy the Gardener 1943XX jeans?

https://store.spiraljeans.jp/de-eu/products/gardener_1943xx-コピー

I thought about picking up a pair out of curiosity since they are one of the rare niche options that have a long enough inseam for me. However, size 31 sold out very quickly, so I'm hoping for someone else to be the guinea pig

Edited July 14 by yung_flynn

[ATWM]

I too was teetering on it but decided I’d done enough damage this year and nothing particularly stood out, especially given that I’m mostly wearing the same jeans (that I quite like) for a good while to come. 

[beautiful_FrEaK]

@ATWM and you have those nice Ground Alls as well

[ATWM]

38 minutes ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

@ATWM and you have those nice Ground Alls as well

I know - and they shamefully haven’t even hit water. I keep wanting to but trying to focus on my WMJ and on the off days, pairs that have already had some wear. My backlog has gotten to be too much over the past few years.

Right now I’m trying to thin out the stash a little and regain some focus in what has become my but never intended to be collection.…

[cheapmuthafukr]

Jelado S301XX starting to fade

[scooby]

My favorite pair of jeans - my second pair of these 

Warehouse lot 1002

 

These are still unwashed and worn infrequently these days

[scooby]

Cushman CSF 22501XX

These are my current pair I am wearing the most these days - I’ve worn many S501XX repro and these take the cake for me. How they fit me, the cut, use my favorite denim 

 

Weird scuff on the right thigh above the knee. Bugging me

 

 

 

Edited July 21 by scooby

[Broark]

12 hours ago, scooby said:

Cushman CSF 22501XX

Do these have the same funky fit as the mainline CSF stuff?

[scooby]

38 minutes ago, Broark said:

Do these have the same funky fit as the mainline CSF stuff?

Not even a little bit

Zero weird hip to waist ratio / flaring - I touched on this a bit in the CSF thread

The 22501XX and S409XXX M-WW2 pairs I had in the past both had tight hips and loose waists - I’m talking inches of extra room in the waist and very tight hips

This pair fits me in the waist perfectly with ample room in the top block. And the cut otherwise is excellent 

[Broark]

Thought I remembered reading that somewhere, thanks for confirming @scooby!
I sold my CSF some time back because of what you mentioned, tight thighs, loose waist and nearly inaccessible front pockets.
Found a pair in my size, maybe I'll try them if I sell a few other that I have for sale. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[indigoeagle]

39 minutes ago, scooby said:

Not even a little bit

Zero weird hip to waist ratio / flaring - I touched on this a bit in the CSF thread

The 22501XX and S409XXX M-WW2 pairs I had in the past both had tight hips and loose waists - I’m talking inches of extra room in the waist and very tight hips

This pair fits me in the waist perfectly with ample room in the top block. And the cut otherwise is excellent 

This pair seems to get reissued once in a while.
I think there was also a Dappers x CSF 1946 506 jacket. But I haven't seen that get issued again.
Any deets on that jacket? Especially compared to CSF's version. Possibly different sizing here as well?

[scooby]

2 hours ago, indigoeagle said:

This pair seems to get reissued once in a while.
I think there was also a Dappers x CSF 1946 506 jacket. But I haven't seen that get issued again.
Any deets on that jacket? Especially compared to CSF's version. Possibly different sizing here as well?

You’re thinking of the 22501 - which is a different pair from the 22501XX, even though on paper they read identical. That model (22501) was reissued at least once

Different denim, different cut/fit, seemingly modeled after different pairs of S501XX (it’s how I reason the stark differences) - these 22501XX use CSF WW2 denim, and the pair of 22501 I had used the Miura denim iirc

 

I have the Dappers CSF S406XXX M-WW2 jacket, and CSF S406XXX M-46 jacket. I am Not sure if the Dappers collab jackets have been reissued 

Fit between the M-WW2 and M-46 would be the M-46 is slimmer through the chest and sleeves

Photos of both:

M-WW2 CSF for Dappers

M-46 CSF house brand

 

[indigoeagle]

31 minutes ago, scooby said:

You’re thinking of the 22501 - which is a different pair from the 22501XX, even though on paper they read identical. That model (22501) was reissued at least once

Different denim, different cut/fit, seemingly modeled after different pairs of S501XX (it’s how I reason the stark differences) - these 22501XX use CSF WW2 denim, and the pair of 22501 I had used the Miura denim iirc

 

I have the Dappers CSF S406XXX M-WW2 jacket, and CSF S406XXX M-46 jacket. I am Not sure if the Dappers collab jackets have been reissued 

Fit between the M-WW2 and M-46 would be the M-46 is slimmer through the chest and sleeves

Photos of both:

M-WW2 CSF for Dappers

M-46 CSF house brand

 

Ah, yes Thanks
Bit of a deja vu. I think, I had it mixed up before and you had explained it.
Which jeans did you have besides the 22501XX?

[indigoeagle]

By the way here are some pics of the Dapper's LOT1272 One Piece Of Rock S406XXX M-47 (BDa1243).

 

 

 

Barnstormers gives these measurements for the N/W.

サイズ
38 肩幅44cm 身幅51cm 着丈58cm 袖丈60cm
40 肩幅46cm 身幅54cm 着丈59cm 袖丈61cm

[Double 0 Soul]

How the hell do you manage to mix up the 22501 with the 22501XX?

They can't make it any clearer

[Maynard Friedman]

I bet Harry ‘denim’ Styles wouldn’t make that schoolboy error

[Broark]

Sad to think that we'll never know what Levi's his stylist put him in. 😭

[scooby]

1 hour ago, indigoeagle said:

Ah, yes Thanks
Bit of a deja vu. I think, I had it mixed up before and you had explained it.
Which jeans did you have besides the 22501XX?

I had the S409XXX M-WW2 and 22501

Two of the most ill fitting pairs of jeans I’ve ever owned - which is a shame because every other detail was spot on

[redragon]

On 6/22/2025 at 12:33 AM, Dr_Heech said:

Exactly.  We go from Nine ounce in For over 60 (c.1932) years and then Ten Ounce in the For over 70 years (both types, c.1942) and the For over 80 years tickets(c.1952). Yet in the For over 85 years ticket, Levi's just put in made from 'Top weight denim', no actual weights were specified. 

Hope the following clarifies the matter (google translate From “War Denim” book)

 

During the war, did the denim of the 501XX become thicker and heavier?

As I mentioned in the chapter on wartime models in my previous book, "Who Made the 501XX?", this legend began with a sentence in Ed Cray's book "Levi's" (published in 1981; the original book "Levi's. Ed Cray" was published in 1978) about the wartime 5011XX, "The weight of denim had increased to 13.5 ounces." In the previous book, I pointed out that Cray's 13.5 ounce theory was "unreliable."

It is true that I have personally experienced that some 501XXs from the wartime era felt a little thicker than others. However, the guarantee tickets from before and during the war, which I also introduced in this book, are consistently stated as 10 ounces. I have not experienced the heaviness of this denim, which is advertised as 10 ounces, as being as heavy as 13.5 ounces.

So I tried to measure the weight and denim thickness of brand new 501XXs from before and after the war. The measuring equipment was a Tanita digital cooking scale "KD-400" and a Shinwa Measurement Co., Ltd. digital thickness caliber "MODEL 73746" (measuring element diameter 10 mm, measuring force 1.1 N or less).

Although it was not possible to standardize the waist size and length, the measurement results are shown in Table 5-A. The thickness was measured at the same four places on each denim, and the measured data is listed as it is so that the variation can be seen. The top five denims are 501XX and S501XX from Levis, which were also introduced in the color pages of this book.

The exact year of manufacture of the pants is unknown, but it is a rough estimate based on information such as the flasher attached to them. The "c" stands for the Latin word circa, which means "around what year."

As for the weight, the sizes are not the same so we cannot draw an accurate conclusion, but we cannot see a 35% increase from 10 ounces to 13.5 ounces. The wartime denim appears to be a little thicker, but it is not heavier.

The fact that it looks thicker is because the unevenness of the fabric is reflected in the numbers. In the end, there was no evidence from the samples we tested that the fabric became heavier or thicker during the war.

The weight of the c.1942 denim in the second row of Table 5-A is slightly heavier, which may be because it is denim from the time when Cone, a denim manufacturer introduced in Chapter 4, was forced to change the settings of its looms, etc.

As mentioned in Chapter 4, Cone stated in a newspaper article that denim had become coarse during the war. At the time, it was an extraordinary situation where one person had to be in charge of 58 denim looms.

Considering the circumstances at the time, the denim was made differently from the regular denim, with a rough finish, which resulted in them feeling thick... I speculate that this may be the true nature of the legend. Of course, we cannot deny the possibility that such thick pants were produced only temporarily during the war, and that we simply have not encountered them. (This article was based on the verification method used by the blog "Denim Archives." We would like to thank the administrator, Ueda Kenji.)

[redragon]

Flasher of the jeans used in the above table:

1940

1942

1943

1945

1946

[Dr_Heech]

@redragon Thanks a bunch for that info btw

Interesting that the reverse yoke model is dated at c.1940. I wonder what the actual dates are for that model. Normally the reverse yoke is just stated a flat 1941 model, which is vague at best. Would love any insight into the actual date that this decision was made (probably by Milton Grunbaum l would imagine) but l doubt that info is in the book??

Edited July 24 by Dr_Heech
To edit obvs

[Dr_Heech]

Knew l'd seen those 1940/1941 bucklebacks before,  they are owned by the Jukebox guy.

They are identical (in terms of patch, flasher and guarantee ticket) to the pair in the 501XX book which are labelled as a rare transitional model, made in 1941.

Here is a post on lg showing them to be a 1937 model(?)

 

 

So in conclusion, they are a late 30s/early 40s model 501XX 😂

Edited July 24 by Dr_Heech

[Broark]

Anyone have that War Denim ISBN handy? Might need to track down a copy.

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I posted it in the denim books thread