Is all selvedge denim double ring spun?

[tweeds]

i would imagine samurai, SC etc. would frown very hard at the thought of using OE-spun yarns. it might even be sacrilegeous...

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.

so in short ringspinning give a yarn that is more irregular and "natural", being twisted into a thread, whereas OE results in a more artificial product?

the trouble is that i haven't even had a pair of good jeans for long enough a period. in all likelihood something like the mid 80s levi's orange tabs would be OE? so i could compare that against my APCs and eternals in time to come.

your automobile analogy is pretty amusing. ironically, if more people knew we were discussing about jeans the way others talk about cars, they'd probably think us highly strange!

[Guest Phrost]

Thanks for all the contributions, but, again, what differences am I looking for between my 1 year old APCs and my recent one wash Levis? Can someone explain it to me in a different way so I can understand? Lol, I don't understand why this thing isn't coming through in my head.

[atom]

Wow, what an interesting thread.

i think Nudie doesn't use denim from kurabo. If my memory serves me well, they use kaihara denim.

[viv1984viv]

tony and tip and all, this thread is top notch, a proper lesson.

When i compare my howies to my apcs I certainly think the howies have a better fabric, lots of streaky vertical falling, and indigo on the surface of the thread as opposed to the apcs with are more even look and the threads seem indigo all the way through and maybe longer to fade.

Would i be right to assume that apc uses open end yarns??

[tweeds]

no i guess that was merely my imagination winding itself up like tony says it's not likely that APC, which is a fairly high-end jeans line, would use OE yarns.

[viv1984viv]

mmmm, ok. Maybe im misunderstanding the topic but would ring/ring be more prone to that nice nice vertical falling??

[sazon]

wow, great info. Thanks much Tony.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

so in short ringspinning give a yarn that is more irregular and "natural", being twisted into a thread, whereas OE results in a more artificial product?!

both are twisted; open end is "blown together" by centrifugal force before twisting; ringspun is "rolled or pressed together" and then twisted.

here's some ringring talk from ringring

Have a look that the two links below.

In the first photo note the slubby vertical lines. That's the ringspun warp. Due to it's 'slubby' nature, the indigo rubs off in an uneven, random way.

http://denim-gallery.heavy.jp/eternal_811-5up.jpg

The second photo shows the back side of some Ring-Ring. See how the horizontal white threads are of varying thicknesses? That's ringspun a weft.

http://beinghunted.com/v40/features/...01/pic_29.html

Put both together and you'll be able to see very quickly whether a denim is Ring-Ring or not. Does that help?

now i'm off to find the thread where ringring states that he has heard it argued that open-end can be just as strong and durable as ringspun; the raw materials are ultimately the deciding factor.

here's urbansprawl covering the same ground:

after the 70's "open-end" spinning was introduced. this spinning basically skips several processes that ring yarns go through. for the same reason as non-selvedge: faster, cheaper, more effecient.

later, to kinda replicate ring/ring, they introduced "faux-ring" or "ring/oe". basically the warp is ring and the weft is open-end spun. hence you keep the price down but get a stronger denim than just oe on both. but that's not the real mccoy right?!

usually, or if you happen to have lots of time to look at denim for some odd reason, you can see the difference between ring/ring or oe. but nowadays, it's tougher to distinguish between ring/ring and ring/oe since they try to fake the slubbyness or irregularities.

another factor of the strength but also beauty of denim is how the twill was woven. the more common construction is 2x1 or 3x1. the latter one is the more expensive but also the more stronger one.

strange, i still have the feeling that the search function is not properly searching pre-crash threads. OE discussions are many, but a search only yields this thread.

[tweeds]

DDML you rock, have you been reading through the old selvedge discussions?

oh yeah, now i remember whose post i was reading about spinning

Ring Spun: The longest cotton fibers from a bushel are twisted together to create a strong highly durable yarn. The yarns are inconsistent in diameter, creating natural slubs & 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.

Open End: All cotton fibers long and short are blown together into a fake twist . This is cost effective and often results in plain looking fabric. Because all sorts of sizes of cotton fibers are used here open end fabric is more likely to tear.

ugh, urban_sprawl returns to the matter at hand - how do we identify ringspun and OE?

the prps are ring-ring 3x1. unless you use a magnifying glass, it's really not that easy to identify nowadays ring/ring from others.

again, like tony's mentioned. i'll go and peer at my orange tabs now.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

i love you too, tip

i found it----------in the other SF:

I think you're underestimating Open End denim. When it was at it's peak, people were still buying it as workwear. I've seen many OE jeans that have been worn and washed every week for years (like 10 years), and have seen many expensive, modern ring-ring jeans that have holes after 6 months of wear (nowhere near a mineshaft either).

Besides, OE is still a part of denim history and the evolution of jeans. I know an elderly gentleman, who I would consider a true denim expert, who told me that OE machinery should be preserved, in time, he speculated it may come back, just as selvedge has.

[alitarbegshe]

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

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.

True. And this has been what I've been saying as well, that things such as selvedge and indigo dye are historical attractions, and are mere indicators of quality.

The thing being was, I always assumed for some reason, regardless of quality, that selvedge denim was ALWAYS double ring spun whereas nonselvedge may or may not be double ring spun.

Another myth destroyed.

I can't believe companies can hark on about making jeans the "tradition way" and not use double ring spun! That's just cheating!

[cheapmuthafukr]

im guessing that the thai fakes are probably OE... just from the way people have described the feel of the denim.

[tweeds]

I can't believe companies can hark on about making jeans the "tradition way" and not use double ring spun! That's just cheating!

"traditional" or not has always been a debate...LVC and various repros have been guilty of embellishing their reproductions with things like heavier denim, different dyes and other differences in the past. i think well-made denim is going to be ring-ring and selvedge anyway, so i've no real quarrels there.

[Paul T]

QUick thoughts.

I don't know of ANY OE selvage denim.

Levi's and many other companies switched to wide projectile loom denim around 1983. At the same period many people also switched from Ring Ring to OE, or Ring/OE denim (it was thought that Ring/OE was pretty much indistinguishable from ring/ring).

Generally, most mid level and premium manufacturers have returned to ring/ring denim, because it gives better fade characteristics, and washed jeans now make up the bulk of the market. And, obviously, a few manufacturers have also returned to selvage looms.

Using selvage looms slows down production and increases fabric wastage. I think it's very unlikely any manufacturer would increase its costs by using narrow looms, and yet skimp on the yarn by using OE.

I don't believe that any Cone selvage denim used by LVC features OE yarn, and I would be extremely surprised if any of the major Japanese mills (and their Chinese subsidiaries) use OE.

The presence of a closed selvage, ie denim made on a narrow loom, does not necessarily signal quality. Ring-ring yarn, however, is pretty universally acknowledged to have better wear characteristics, to be better lasting than OE, and gives a more vinatge look, all other things being equal.

[tony_hige]

QUick thoughts.

I don't know of ANY OE selvage denim.

Good recap - agree on all points, but cheap OE selvage denim is out there, though it's a rarity. The batch of redline selvage Levi's 501 that I mentioned earlier in this thread - Canal Jean was selling them for about $30 a pair. I hardly go into their new location - I was in there maybe last October - but they still had a few pairs left in really odd sizes. BTW, does anyone know the story about these jeans. The red tab only had the circled r, there was no back patch, and the coin pkt and sideseams showed the selvaged edge. The interior nail of the shank button was stamped with a three digit number - can't remember the number. And the denim was cheap - they wore down very poorly and were definitely not ringspun, though they didn't look half bad in the raw state, though the indigo was a bit too blue for my tastes. I remember dipping them in a rit dye mix that looked like tea to darken the indigo.

[minya]

Good recap - agree on all points, but cheap OE selvage denim is out there, though it's a rarity. The batch of redline selvage Levi's 501 that I mentioned earlier in this thread - Canal Jean was selling them for about $30 a pair. I hardly go into their new location - I was in there maybe last October - but they still had a few pairs left in really odd sizes. BTW, does anyone know the story about these jeans. The red tab only had the circled r, there was no back patch, and the coin pkt and sideseams showed the selvaged edge. The interior nail of the shank button was stamped with a three digit number - can't remember the number. And the denim was cheap - they wore down very poorly and were definitely not ringspun, though they didn't look half bad in the raw state, though the indigo was a bit too blue for my tastes. I remember dipping them in a rit dye mix that looked like tea to darken the indigo.

I'm not an expert, but from the details you gave, all signs point to those mysterious selvage Levis being fakes. Paul T recounted on here a while back that Urban Outfitters in Europe was unknowingly selling LVC fakes, since they had gotten the details down so well. The ones you saw, however, sound like (or very similar to) the notorious Thai fakes.

[snugglepony]

...was thinking the same thing.

exposed 5th pocket selvage is a no-no.

[alitarbegshe]

Sooo

I take from all this, that ring spun denim is the important factor, rather then selvege to get good fade (obviously with a heavy dollop of wear and tear)

Also that ring spun is stronger then open ended, so will last longer.

Also, with a few exceptions, all selvege denim is ring spun. So even cheap selvege (uniqlo etc) is is double ring spun.

Good. That's what I thought.

[minya]

Also, with a few exceptions, all selvege denim is ring spun. So even cheap selvege (uniqlo etc) is is double ring spun.

Good. That's what I thought.

well yes, but that's totally oversimplifying things. I believe it was tony_hige who posted earlier that the difference between $30 Uniqlo Kurabo selvage denim and $265 Nudie Kurabo selvage denim lies in a huge number of other factors beyond narrow-loom weaving and ring/ring yarn spinning. There's too many factors to list.

[horriblyjollyjinx]

hmm, so the denim Nudie uses in the SSDS and RRDS is mercerized and acrylic coated?

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.

There is a store in Stockholm that sells the thai fakes as authentic Levi's, they charge about $135 and they have around 50 pairs lying around.

They actually look very good except for the off details and have better fades than a lot of Nudie, APC's, LVC's etc that I have seen, they look better than about 90% of the jeans I've seen. The denim does not look or feel cheap.

A few of them are waxed to crease faster and one pair had a lot of wax on the selvedge to give more pronounced traintracks but that just looked very bad.

I'm not an expert, but from the details you gave, all signs point to those mysterious selvage Levis being fakes. Paul T recounted on here a while back that Urban Outfitters in Europe was unknowingly selling LVC fakes, since they had gotten the details down so well. The ones you saw, however, sound like (or very similar to) the notorious Thai fakes.

[JFleshman]

Great thread.

Tony, you are an awesome informer.

This should help me in my debates with family and friends to argue why I should want to pay $300 on jeans that look only slightly nicer than the $30 K-Mart ones.

Definitely put as a bookmark.

-JF

[Paul T]

Interesting this thread has surfaced again.

I find it easier to tell ring/ring from OE by looking inside the jeans. Ring ring looks more regular... somewhere I have a set of Cone samples of RR, R/OE and OE, if I find them I'll put up photos. It's not as simple as saying that RR is more slubby or has more irregularities, as that's a separate variable.

From what others have told me, like Adriano Goldschmied, RR denim gives more 'zing' when it's distressed. That's been the prime reason for its huge resurgence. But RR alone does not signify good jeans, any more than the presence of selvage .

Oh, and as a matter of record, Tony's LVC jeans were definitely fakes, as suggested, no LVC jeans have exposed coin pocket selvage. INteresting that they should be OE denim with selvage though, would love to see those looms!

[cabl3]

Put the photos up, if you find them please. I understand the terms as i read them...but wont have a clear idea of all these intricacies and differences till I see it.

[JFleshman]

*******bump*****

[JFleshman]

Also, my SEXSC are r/r, and the weave is beautiful on them. The denim pattern seems to be more apparent on the warp AND the weft. It's much more defined.

Would that be slubbiness?

-JF

[erbs]

what ever happened to tony hige?

[pacioli]

I am not sure whether Tony Hige's jeans are fake LVC's or not but I could not find where he wrote the coin pocket selvage was actually exposed. Maybe there's a picture out there that I missed?

In any event I think I can contribute a bit to this conversation. Regarding the existence of OE selvedge denim...it definitely exists in the form of jeans (but there's a twist). Remember when ACG (American Cotton Growers, denim mill) was formed their whole spin was OE spun yarns. But for several reasons they did not purchase the shuttleless looms right away, so for a while they used wide shuttle looms (no typo...we're talking >60"...possibly 70+", as confirmed by a source close to this activity) for some time.

Here's some more testimonial: Quote from Bill Blackledge, an attorney who dealt with ACG's affairs, in the book "Field to Fabric: The Story of American cotton Growers" (Jack Lichtenstein) "When Emerson and Dan went to Europe to this textile machinery show...they saw the prototypes of these new 'shuttleless looms.' So they came back and redesigned that wwhole weaving-room operation and enlarged it so that it would accommodate those kinds of looms. [The manufacturers] wouldn't sell us the looms then because they weren't quite perfected. So we bought the old-style [shuttle] looms, but we put them in positions where we could replace them with shuttleless looms."

This is all taking place in the 70's, with Levi's being a strong supporter of ACG. I have been looking at many orange tabs from this era recently (due to widespread designers interest in this look) and it is quite clear why they usually have no selvage sideseams. Because the rolls were so wide that using the closed selvage edge for the sideseams would make their cutting markers very inefficient. So often the selvage would have been cut off. By the way I am no Levi's expert but I do know a thing or two about denim.

So if you are very interested in identifying OE denim without having to cut a swatch I suggest you go to your local vintage store and check out the washed down orange tabs. You want to look for a salt and pepper-like character in the denim. It is often described as being orange peel. At first blush it is denim described as having no character, but the denim is actually busy with character (it's hiding behind the twill line and looks like orange peel, wrinkles, mini-worns, etc).

OE denim is also described as being fuzzy without being hairy. Our hairy Japanese denim are not OE, fret not (they simply haven't been through finishing processes that make them look more flat).

Sorry I'm blabbing on and on...I can organize my thoughts and provide some easier to follow information if there's interest.

[JFleshman]

This thread should be stickied!

It it extremely informative. This thread alone has helped me and others a whole lot in in identifying quality denim and being able to further understand where our money is truly going towards.

-JF

[JFleshman]

Ok, my grandma is a long-time, professional seamstress and I spent time with her just yesterday. She reinforced my backpocket from a hole with another piece of denim, so I took the time to convert her to recognizing quality jean denim.

She explained that "Mercerizing" is a process where the threads are dipped in a sort of acidic solution that strengthens the thread a lot.

That's all. I feel nauseous. Hate to cut things short.

-JF

[JFleshman]

mercerization A process of treating a cotton yarn or fabric, in which the fabric or yarn is immersed in a caustic soda solution and later neutralized in acid. The process causes a permanent swelling of the fiber, resulting in an increased luster on the surface of the fabric, an increased affinity for dyes, and increased strength. (http://indigotraveler.com/Denim101.htm)

hell yeah.

-JF