Is all selvedge denim double ring spun?

[alitarbegshe]

Title says it all really.

It would folow that no selvege denim would be open spun if that is the case.

Just following a chain of thought in my head.

Cheers!

[tony_hige]

Title says it all really.

It would folow that no selvege denim would be open spun if that is the case.

Just following a chain of thought in my head.

Cheers!

Spinning the yarn and weaving the fabric are two complete different processes, so not all selvage denim is ring-ring. Several years ago, Canal Jean in NYC was selling a batch of Levi's 501 that were selvage denim for about $30 a pair, and that denim was all open end. I haven't inspected a pair of the cheap Uniqlo selvage jeans that people have been talking about, but my guess is that they're probably not using ring-ring either.

[tweeds]

tony's got it right, ringring (double ring spun) denim and selvedge are entirely separate. selvedge is merely the finish on the weave, while ring spun yarns produce threads of much slubbiness. you can actually see that ringring denim is slubbier than OE...and selvedge denim has a wide range of slubbiness.

actually, i believe Uniqlo denim -is- ring ring, which is even better considering the price.

[Guest Phrost]

Jeez, I thought I knew just about everything there was about denim. Anyway, can one of you guys post up pics of double ring spun vs. open end denim? I'm sure there are pics, but I'm lazy.

[tweeds]

i'll scour about for a good pic, but just to give you an idea - most of the japanese brands superfuture talks about are ringring, i believe. SDA, canes, etc. i think serge mentioned once that it's clearer looking from the inside of the jeans, you can really see the thick indigo warp threads which are indicative of ringspun yarn.

[tweeds]

what i could find at short notice:

compare this to your 501stfs for example

edit - okay i don't remember if APC uses OE or ring-OE or what, but here's an example of the differing yarn thicknesses:

SD1177 vs APC

[tweeds]

the cut, maybe, and there's always the presence of the inverted nudie "N" - branding always pays off.

that's an interesting fact about Uniqlo and Nudie; it wouldn't be kurabo would it?

[Guest Phrost]

Yea, people who buy Nudie most likely want the cut and the name (branding). Thanks for the pics tweedles, I'm beginning to understand what rinspun means. Can anyone else enlighten me through pictures? ringring (how fitting of a name) and all the other denim gurus?

[tweeds]

for what it's worth, here's a "formal" definition of ringspun yarn

The longest cotton fibers from a bushel are twisted together to create a strong highly durable yarn. The yarns are inconsistent in diameter, creating naturally slubby threads & sharp vertical lines when made in to fabric. All of this yields a higher quality and since more cotton is used, denim made from ring-spun yarns are more expensive when compared to open-end spun yarn.

A characteristic of ring-spun yarn is the uneven texture of the yarn.

[poly800rock]

Speaking of Uniqlo selvage...I never understood why people would pay for the RRDS because I remember reading a while ago that the Uniqlo selvage is the same Nudie uses for the RRDS just a different color. I forget the name of the denim manufacturer though.

why do people pay anything for jeans? i think nudie has become really big recently and people who buy em probably don't care about the denim, but more the name now....

[tony_hige]

You can't really see the difference between ringspun and open end denim unless you see an extreme close-up of the yarns. Ringspun yarn is rope-like, open end yarn is fuzzy. As long as I have ring in the warp (the indigo yarns), I'm happy, though ring in both warp and weft is best. You can't really tell from the yarn gauge either - you can have thick or thin yarns in either ringspun or open end. To really tell the difference, I need to feel the denim - then the difference is obvious. I don't think any higher end company like APC would use open end yarn, though I think LVC has - I bought a pair of 1933 buckle backs at the Levi's store in Berlin, and almost from the get go something didn't really seem right about them. After the first washing it became obvious that they used open end denim, which blew my mind - why go through the bother of repro-ing all the details of a vintage jean, then use cheap denim.

[tony_hige]

hey, my last post sounded like I was attacking tweedlesinpink's earlier reply - didn't mean to come off like that. I just geek out about this stuff.

[Corbin Law]

can anyone validate that about nudie and uniqulo

is it just a rumour or is it true?

[Guest Phrost]

tony, could you post some up-close pics of ringspun vs. open end yarns? What am I looking for when I feel ringspun denim? Lol, I spend a crazy amount of time comparing my selvage denim vs. my cheap jeans and can't really see much of a differance in the yarns of the fabric.

[tony_hige]

can anyone validate that about nudie and uniqulo

is it just a rumour or is it true?

I'm 99% sure that nudie and uniqlo both use kurabo denim, but keep in mind that kurabo is a huge company with a vast selection of denims, so nudie could be using a much more expensive denim than what uniqlo uses. uniqlo probably also gets a break in price because they no doubt buy more yardage than nudie.

[tony_hige]

tony, could you post some up-close pics of ringspun vs. open end yarns? What am I looking for when I feel ringspun denim? Lol, I spend a crazy amount of time comparing my selvage denim vs. my cheap jeans and can't really see much of a differance in the yarns of the fabric.

have you worn a pair of each for over a year? that's when the differences are very significant. open end yarns are fuzzy and porous, so they suck up a lot of the indigo dye. because of this, you get a much less pronounced hige and honeycombing behind the knees - if you don't wash them a lot, you'll still get hige, but not so contrasty. and when they get old, the spring holes everywhere and quickly - open end yarns ar enot nearly as stong as ringspun yarns. I think I have a japanese book at work that has photos of close-ups of ringspun vs. oe yarns - I'll scan it and post it tomorrow.

[ddohnggo]

are 45 rpm sorahikos OE? i only ask since the denim is fuzzy.

[tweeds]

i don't think 45rpm would dare to use OE, would they?

open end yarns are fuzzy and porous, so they suck up a lot of the indigo dye. because of this, you get a much less pronounced hige and honeycombing behind the knees - if you don't wash them a lot, you'll still get hige, but not so contrasty. and when they get old, the spring holes everywhere and quickly - open end yarns ar enot nearly as stong as ringspun yarns. I think I have a japanese book at work that has photos of close-ups of ringspun vs. oe yarns - I'll scan it and post it tomorrow.

tony no worries, i'm slowly learning what i can on the technical aspects of denim myself and do post those scans - i'd like to see properly what ringspun and OE spun yarns look like as well. i've never had the chance to compare both closeup. i would assume the relative weakness of OE yarns is due to the nature of the cotton fibres used because the thread is spun from fibres of differing lengths?

incidentally, you are in the denim industry i would assume? which aspect do you deal with? out of curiosity.

[tony_hige]

This site has some info about the difference between ring and oe yarns:

http://www.pcca.com/Denim/denimmanufacturing.asp

I think a lot of the confusion between the two comes from the fact that ringspun denim is much more common today than say ten or fifteen years ago - you can go to target and get a pair that probably uses ring in the warp. Fifteen years ago, that wasn't the case, and that's how Hidehiko Yamane and Adriano Goldschmied made names for themselves - while everyone else was cutting corners and fooling consumers with "perceived value" (a term frequently thrown about in the industry), these guys were focusing on the details that made vintage denim so appealing, like using ringspun denim. Now, they cut corners in different ways, like using ringspun denim from China i/o North Carolina. I sort of learned by accident - buying a pair of Levi's, wearing them almost everyday and not washing them much (because I was broke and lazy, not out of fashion), then wondering why they didn't fade as well as the hand-me-down Levi's I got from my older cousin. There are so many other factors that go into the denim milling that make the difference to the end consumer - using mercerized yarns or acrylic coatings, for example. So ten years ago, it was as simple as ringspun versus open end. Now it's more like ringspun warp/open end fill versus ring warp/ring fill mercerized yarns and acrylic coating, and that's your difference between a $40 uniqlo kurabo denim jean and a $240 nudie kurabo denim jean.

[alitarbegshe]

You learn something new every day!

One of the reasons I started purchasing seledge denim was because i automatically assumed this would be double ring spun, not open ended.

Damn! Now I am loooking at my denim collection and wondering which ones are open ended....

[tweeds]

thanks for the link! the section on ring-spinning makes the process sound far more complicated than OE spinning, with the roving step taking place prior to the spinning.

i've read that it's possible to make ring/OE feel and look very similar to ringring - is there actually a huge difference in durability and texture that makes one far superior to the other?

it's amazing what you can learn by accident.

[tony_hige]

thanks for the link! the section on ring-spinning makes the process sound far more complicated than OE spinning, with the roving step taking place prior to the spinning.

i've read that it's possible to make ring/OE feel and look very similar to ringring - is there actually a huge difference in durability and texture that makes one far superior to the other?

it's amazing what you can learn by accident.

imho, not that big of a difference between ring/ring and ring/oe because the juice is in your indigo warp yarns, not the white weft fill yarns. it's true that a ring fill is stronger than an oe fill, but the fill threads are usually always thicker than the indigo threads, so when you start to wear holes in the knees you'll still get breakage in the indigo yarns first.

[tweeds]

hm, that's interesting...i guess also that from the outside of the jean the indigo warp is elevated from the weft, hence when you kneel down you abrade the warp much more than the fill threads - logically speaking that is.

but why are the wefts usually thicker? i'd thought they would have been spun in the same batch as the warps (assuming ringspun yarn on both), or at least on the same machinery, making them similar.

[tony_hige]

hm, that's interesting...i guess also that from the outside of the jean the indigo warp is elevated from the weft, hence when you kneel down you abrade the warp much more than the fill threads - logically speaking that is.

but why are the wefts usually thicker? i'd thought they would have been spun in the same batch as the warps (assuming ringspun yarn on both), or at least on the same machinery, making them similar.

Most traditional denim is what they call 3x1, meaning that the indigo goes over 3 weft yarns for every weft yarn it goes under, which is why you see mostly indigo warp yarns on the outside and mostly white weft yarns on the inside. Denim doesn't have to be 3x1, but traditionally that's how it is. Also, weft yarns don't have to be thicker than warp yarns, but that's how it is on most vintage denims - it just gives you a stronger denim. Ditto with the 3x1 weave. I do repairs of jeans for friends and I begrudgingly agreed to fix this girl's pair of seven jean that she had split. The denim was a 2x1 weave which gave it a trendy appearance, but was very weak. Sure enough she split them in the area around my repair they day after I returned them to her.

[poly800rock]

Most traditional denim is what they call 3x1, meaning that the indigo goes over 3 weft yarns for every weft yarn it goes under, which is why you see mostly indigo warp yarns on the outside and mostly white weft yarns on the inside. Denim doesn't have to be 3x1, but traditionally that's how it is. Also, weft yarns don't have to be thicker than warp yarns, but that's how it is on most vintage denims - it just gives you a stronger denim. Ditto with the 3x1 weave. I do repairs of jeans for friends and I begrudgingly agreed to fix this girl's pair of seven jean that she had split. The denim was a 2x1 weave which gave it a trendy appearance, but was very weak. Sure enough she split them in the area around my repair they day after I returned them to her.

as always, tony hige, amazing knowledge. replaced the void since ring ring left

[tweeds]

haha my mind's turning itself round something...but i can't put my finger on it. argh.

so at any rate, if visual inspection of the yarn gauge shouldn't be an indicator of the type of spinning, and instead one should rely on feeling the texture of the yarn, then would it follow that any variations in slubbiness or the hand of a bolt of denim should be more a result of the weaving process rather than the spinning of the cotton yarn itself? because my notion of the association between slubs and ringspun thread arose from reading some of the old posts in the forum, they do suggest some link between the two. are the posts inaccurate?

my curiosity is fully awake now as you can see.

just to return briefly to the title of the thread (which i re-noticed), alitarbegshe i'm going to paraphrase a point ringring has made often: that while selvedge is usually an indicator of a certain dedication to historical detail on the part of a mill, there are enough companies offering selvedge denim of various qualities today, such that the presence of a selvedge finish should not automatically suggest that the denim is necessarily of good quality, more durable, or will look better than nonselvedged denim over time, etc.

[M.O.A]

wow, this is one of the most interesting threads i have taken the time to read in a while

[tweeds]

imagine a thread with ringring, urban_sprawl, Paul T, tony and other assorted folks pitching in. now that's superheaven. it's a pity they come and go, just missing each other by weeks

[tony_hige]

haha my mind's turning itself round something...but i can't put my finger on it. argh.

so at any rate, if visual inspection of the yarn gauge shouldn't be an indicator of the type of spinning, and instead one should rely on feeling the texture of the yarn, then would it follow that any variations in slubbiness or the hand of a bolt of denim should be more a result of the weaving process rather than the spinning of the cotton yarn itself? because my notion of the association between slubs and ringspun thread arose from reading some of the old posts in the forum, they do suggest some link between the two. are the posts inaccurate?

nope...slub is all a byproduct of the spinning process. yes, irregularities can and will occur at every point of the milling, but slub as we know it comes from the spinning. visual inspection of the yarn gauge is not an indicator, but visual inspection of the yarn itself is: ringspun yarns are twisted, open end yarns are pressed into shape, kind of like felt. both can be fuzzy, but open end is a lot more fuzzy. to me this issue is a little like trying to tell the difference between a '50 Mercury and a '54 Buick by inspecting them through a jewellers loupe - in detail, it can be hard to tell the difference between the two, but step back three feet and the difference is obvious. denim is the same: touch and feel it and the difference is obvious, wash it once and the difference is very obvious, wear it for a year and the difference is glaringly obvious.

[Guest jeffvyain]

is it safe to assume that all our japanese repros are ringring? if not, does anyone know which ones are and which are not?