Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[Maynard Friedman]

+10

I’ll add buying via a proxy or using Google translate to write an email in Japanese to a shop

[Double 0 Soul]

35 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

Also remember a trend where everything had an anchor on it, from watch caps to jackets, although could've dreamt that last one (?)

Might have been a Mister Freedom thing Doc.. or MF imitators, there was even a guy who had a massive Mister Freedom tattoo down his forearm.. i've just dug it out on pg273 but the images have gone .. what a shame

But then again too few to mention...

[Double 0 Soul]

53 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

+10

I’ll add buying via a proxy or using Google translate to write an email in Japanese to a shop

Yes.. this was the instructions i printed out from sufu back in 17/06/2008 on how to fill out the old Rakuten order form before they started to accept PP and it was still written in Japanese

 

Edited February 20 by Double 0 Soul

[CSL]

 

A few of these I didn't get.

 

Size down craze.. Kinda. Not extreme, but still regretted it.

Slept in jeans.. Years ago but not for chasing fades.

Diors.. No

Fancy wallet.. Yes. Coupla times. Stopped carryiing them because I often have to transition from jeans to dress pants where the pockets are too small.

Engineer boots.. Yes. But back in the rockabilly days rather than the more recent craze.

Ocean wash.. Yes. Wanted to try it because my dad had done it as a sailor in WW2. 

Resolute washing / fit having previously not.. ?

Never washing.. No (Until WOM now).

Coffee wash.. No

Slubby or streaky.. No

Heavy oz denimz.. Think my custom Companions are 19oz

Joined a contest.. Yes

Joined a tour.. No

APC.. No

Fancy washing detergent.. No

Worn denim while raw.. Yes

Paid for an expensive repair.. Yes

Wallet jewelry.. No

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots.. No. Depending on where one considers the lower range of expensive to begin.

Numerous pairs of identical jeans.. Yes. I suppose so.

Numerous fancy leather belts.. Yes

Native American Japanese jewelry.. No

Jacket suitable for the Arctic.. Yes

Unreadable Japanese language magazines.. No

Dressed like a sailor.. Yes

Dressed like a miner.. Yes

Dressed like an urban lumberjack.. Yes

Mill repro.. ?

Dressed like a railway worker.. Yes

Stacked.. ?

Starch..No

Freezer.. No

Fancy socks.. Yes

Handmade English shoes.. No

Whites Semi Dress.. Yes. Used pair.

Discharge print.. Yes

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining.. No.

Photo of jeans in bathtub.. No

Wore jeans wet..Yes

£2000 leather jacket.. No

Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era.. Yes

Bought jeans nobody else owned.. Yes

Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans.. No.

Edited February 26 by CSL

[fabes]

I’ll play

Size down craze: No
Slept in jeans: Yes, out of sheer laziness not for the fades
Diors: No
Fancy wallet: Yes 
Engineer boots: No - love the look, but not my style
Ocean wash: No
Resolute washing / fit having previously not: No
Never washing: No
Coffee wash: No
Slubby or streaky: No
Heavy oz denimz: No
Joined a contest: Yes - WoM is my first
Joined a tour: No
APC: No
Fancy washing detergent: No
Worn denim while raw: No
Paid for an expensive repair: No
Wallet jewelry: No
Numerous pairs of very expensive boots: Yes
Numerous pairs of identical jeans: Yes, different sizes
Numerous fancy leather belts: Yes
Native American Japanese jewelry: Nope
Jacket suitable for the Arctic: just a puffy
Unreadable Japanese language magazines: Yes
Dressed like a sailor: once as a child for photos
Dressed like a miner: No
Dressed like an urban lumberjack: Yes, and even split wood while doing so. Flannels, boots somewhat broad shoulders sometimes hard to avoid this look. 
Mill repro: No
Dressed like a railway worker: No
Stacked: No
Starch: No
Freezer: No
Fancy socks: Yes it’s probably a 50/50 ratio of awesome to suck
Handmade English shoes: No
Whites Semi Dress: No
Discharge print: Yes, but not wabash
Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining: No - usually wear out my clothes until they are rags
Photo of jeans in bathtub: Just for the personal collection
Wore jeans wet: once, never again
£2000 leather jacket: Nah, wouldn’t look right on me
Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era: Not yet
Bought jeans nobody else owned: Yes
Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans: No
Colored weft denim: No
Attended a meet up?: No 
Has at least a decade's worth of denim in the closet, unworn? Yes. Need to frequently remind myself that I don’t need to have every shiny new thing. 
 

I browsed sufu a bit over the years, but didn’t join until recently. Was involved in the skate community for so long and only recently ventured away clothing-wise. So that makes sense why I haven’t hit all these micro trends. However, I’ve worn Levi's as long as I can remember and always preferred them rigid and without stretch. 

Edited February 22 by fabes

[Dr_Heech]

On 2/19/2025 at 1:41 PM, Double 0 Soul said:

Listen up people.. I'm making a list of past sufu trends

Did you jump onboard or not../ how fking sufu actually are you?

Size down craze.. No

Slept in jeans.. Yes but not intentionally

Diors.. No

Fancy wallet.. Yes

Engineer boots.. Yes

Ocean wash.. No

Resolute washing / fit having previously not.. No

Never washing.. Yes

Coffee wash.. No

Slubby or streaky.. None

Heavy oz denimz.. Only once

Joined a contest.. No

Joined a tour.. No

APC.. No

Fancy washing detergent.. Yes

Worn denim while raw.. No

Paid for an expensive repair.. No

Wallet jewelry.. No

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots.. Boy Howdy!

Numerous pairs of identical jeans.. Again yes

Numerous fancy leather belts.. Yes

Native American Japanese jewelry.. Hell no

Jacket suitable for the Arctic.. Yes

Unreadable Japanese language magazines.. Yes

Dressed like a sailor.. No

Dressed like a miner.. No

Dressed like an urban lumberjack.. No

Mill repro.. Yes

Dressed like a railway worker.. No

Stacked.. No

Starch..No

Freezer.. No

Fancy socks.. No

Handmade English shoes.. No

Whites Semi Dress.. No

Discharge print.. Yes

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining.. Yes

Photo of jeans in bathtub.. Yes

Wore jeans wet..Yes

£2000 leather jacket.. Yes

Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era.. Yes

Bought jeans nobody else owned.. Yes

Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans.. Not that i would mention here

Please contribute..

My turn,  although bit boring and predictable as usual:

Size down craze - No but have participated in vanity sizing once or twice.

Slept in jeans - Yes in my youth, at festivals, camping etc

Diors- No but remember the 19cm thread

Fancy wallet - No

Fancy engineer boots - No but wish l had

Ocean wash - No

Resolute thingy - No

Never washing - No but will give it a go at some point

Coffee wash - No

Slubby or streaky - No

Heavy ounce denimz - No

Joined a contest - Yes RoyxCone 

Joined a tour - Twice

APC - No

Fancy washing detergent - No

Worn denim while raw - see ^Never washing

Paid for an expensive repair - Never ever paid for any repair thanks to the skills of Mrs_Heech

Wallet jewelry  - No

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots - No

Numerous pairs of identical jeans- Yes in the distant past but not recently 

Numerous fancy leather belts - No

Native (American) Japanese jewelry - Lol

Jacket suitable for the artic - Yes, once owned a C.H Masland N-3a

Unreadable Japanese language magazines  - Hell yeah

Dressed like a sailor - No

Dressed like a miner - No

Dressed like a lumberjack - ..ish

Mil repro - Yes

Dressed like a railroad worker - No

Dressed like an ice cream vendor - No

Dressed like a P.o.W - No

Stacked - No

Starch - (and iron) but only the selvedge/train tracks when jeans are raw

Freezer - No

Fancy socks - No

Handmade English shoes - No

Whites Semi dress - No

Discharge print - No

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought before joining - No, still own at least 10-20%

Photo of jeans in bathtub - No

Wore jeans wet - Yes

£2000 leather jacket - No but did own a £650 Goodwear M422a

Numerous repro denim jackets all from the same era - Hell yes

Bought jeans nobody else owns - Yes

Barf/Man stain/shit oneself in jeans - Can't remember 

Denim meet up - Never been to a meet up as such but have met several members here over the years for a pint or two (Paul T, Maynard and Flash) and one member when l was horrendously hungover (sorry Smoothsailor) ☺️

[Edit] just wanted to add that l have also more recently met Mr Black  when he was working at Soas.

 

Edited Thursday at 02:58 PM by Dr_Heech
To add stuff

[Double 0 Soul]

"Worn denim while raw"

I remember folks buying raw denim, wearing them to set very crisp combs, washing them after 3 or 4 months and the combs would be half way up the back of the thighs.. "aw! bollocks"

This^ was the trend i was alluding to.. did anyone do this and regret it?

I'm not much of a washer at the best of times..  i've had jeans which i've never washed but i've always got the shrinkage out first, I've never worn them raw.

I had a pair of SC47s which i didn't wash for nearly a decade but they did have a few agitated soaks in the bath tub.. i didn't want them to show machine marks.. marbling, fade lines and such..

The caveat here is, if my jeans were stinky, i would wash them for sure but i don't tend to produce body odor.. (like prince andrew) i don't even need to use a deodorant I just spray a bit of tree huger citrus essence..  i can wear socks for days, even my shoes which i wear all day at work have zero smell..

The fancy detergent trend for me was the Sugarcane sachets which are quite good but very expensive (i was given a box from Hirofumi at Vari) the other washing trend for me was Dr Bronners pure soap.. but my jeans always felt a bit greasy to the touch as though the soap hadn't been fully rinsed out in the machine, i would often run them through a second rinse before bagging it off and going back to Fairy Non Bio...

[Dr_Heech]

@Double 0 Soul l've not done any of those things and rarely use detergent when washing/soaking rinsing of jeans anyway. 

I have pair of raw 201's which fit fine raw but would instantly become Gloria vanderbilts if they ever touched warm water. This was what my post was alluding to 

[Double 0 Soul]

In hindsight Charlie.. i should have explained the 'trends' with a bit more clarity.. rather than some half-remembered, cobbled together post.

I wasn't expecting such a great response, thanks for humouring me everyone

[Dr_Heech]

30 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

In hindsight Charlie.. i should have explained the 'trends' with a bit more clarity.. rather than some half-remembered, cobbled together post.

I wasn't expecting such a great response, thanks for humouring me everyone

People here want entertainment as much as more denim, and you started this conga so feel free to update and tweak and so on. It's all good fun 😁 

[Cold Summer]

5 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

The caveat here is, if my jeans were stinky, i would wash them for sure but i don't tend to produce body odor.. (like prince andrew) i don't even need to use a deodorant I just spray a bit of tree huger citrus essence..  i can wear socks for days, even my shoes which i wear all day at work have zero smell..

This is my experience as well, I bathe every day and my lower body doesn't tend to produce much in the way of odor, thankfully. If I went for a run, or mowed my yard on a scorching summer day, my T-shirt will stink by the time I'm done, but I don't do that kind of highly strenuous, sweaty activity in jeans anyway. If my jeans actually smelled or were gross my wife would complain and insist I wash them for sure, but she never minds at all.

When it comes to jeans getting gross, there's a big difference between internal and external dirtiness. External you can spot clean, like if you get some mud or mustard or whatever on your jeans, depending on the situation. But there's not much you can do about internal, if you just sweat nonstop. The latter category really varies a lot from person to person based on biological factors more than anything else, probably.

[Double 0 Soul]

I treat my ride to work and back like a time trial.. so when i arrive, i'm usually perspiring.. i'm wearing a snug fitting cycle jersey which is 82% recycled polyester.. i can't wash it in the evening and get it dry for morning.. especially not at this time of year so it only gets washed on a Sunday.. even though it's man made fibre, it still smells fresh at the end of the week.

Edited February 22 by Double 0 Soul

[mlwdp]

Ewwwwwwwwww

https://www.fendi.com/us-en/gift-ideas/gifts-for-her/fendi-red-wing-sienna-leather-booties-8t8683atswf1suj?queryID=cb3d66bf16fcf63f763df2a10cf249e6&objectID=8T8683ATSWF1SUJ&indexName=production_eu01_fendi_demandware_net__US__products__en_US

[Double 0 Soul]

What the hell are you doing on the Fendi site? 

[Double 0 Soul]

Nice to see PrettyBoyTony in WAYWT making highstreet labels look no different to denim-snob labels.. it's how this place used to be, we all came here as denim nerds but before too long, due in part to our pathetic inability to resist consumer urges we were all wearing head to toe sufu approved brands..

 

I've always tried to resist buying fancy t-shirts, £5 Gildan tees fit me perfectly so why spend £40 on Whitesville tees..? folks working at the Whitesville factory in Japan will probably have better working conditions than the folks working at the Gildan factory in Haiti .. but then, with the lack of employment opportunities in wartorn, earthquake struck Haiti.. i'm sure any work, (apart from working down the old poison mine) is better than no work at all so should i buy tees from Haiti or not? are Gildan taking advantage of cheap labour.. probably, yes.

 

So why do I/we feel compelled to use the "im paying a little more to ensure better working conditions" argument when buying clothing yet only today on my way home from work, i called at Tesco to buy some ramen and zero fucks were given for the folks working in the Chinese noodle factory.. their working conditions could be terrible but i just tossed them in the basket along with everything else i bought from far off lands.. only drawing the line at Dr Oetker

 

I appreciate there is a lot of clothing we crave here which can't be bought on the UK highstreet (for less than car money) our jeans for one with all their period correct intricacies.. i also appreciate those folks buying expensive tees could say the same thing.. but we didn't come here as t-shirt nerds.. the forum manipulated us into buying expensive t-shirts..

 

..or Aliens ring coat for two.. you would struggle to find anything akin to this on the highstreet, therefore it is worth buying.. but if you take a flannel shirt for instance .. i've bought a few Woolrich varieties from the local vintage joint for work shirts.. a step up in price would be Uniqlo followed by M&S, SC, UES.. IH then RO with £1000 separating the cheapest from the most expensive for essentially something that looks quite similar.. even to me..

 

The shirt-nerds would strike me down in flames.. but again, we didn't come here as shirt nerds.. the forum made us into shirt nerds, it's not called Supershirts is it? 

Edited February 24 by Double 0 Soul

[reubensangwich]

I've been manipulated dammit! I had the same opinion on shirts - I was quite happy buying vintage Big Mac, Five Brother, and the like for $15-20 on eBay - but the more I scrolled the WAYWT thread this winter, the more the idea of a new, thick, Japanese made flannel tantalized me. I'd always denounced Iron Heart as comically expensive, though I had to admit their UHF made me curious. After finding one new with tags on eBay for "just" $175, I pulled the trigger. When it came in I was genuinely stunned at how beautiful it was, I immediately started checking stockists for sales and bought another the next day 😅 

But, they are helping me make it through this particularly frigid winter with a bit less bulk under my jacket, so maybe the manipulation was a good thing. 

 

[Double 0 Soul]

We all justify it in different ways..

[Cold Summer]

1 hour ago, Double 0 Soul said:

but then, with the lack of employment opportunities in wartorn, earthquake struck Haiti.. i'm sure any work, (apart from working down the old poison mine) is better than no work at all so should i buy tees from Haiti or not?

That's exactly the reasoning the cigar-chomping robber barons want you to use! 😆

Quote

So why do I/we feel compelled to use the "im paying a little more to ensure better working conditions" argument when buying clothing yet only today on my way home from work, i called at Tesco to buy some ramen and zero fucks were given for the folks working in the Chinese noodle factory.. their working conditions could be terrible but i just tossed them in the basket along with everything else i bought from far off lands.. only drawing the line at Dr Oetker

The way I look at it, it's practically impossible to be a conscientious/sustainable/etc. consumer across every category of stuff that you buy for a variety of reasons, but it seems reasonable to pick a couple things where you think you can (or want) to support better labor conditions/environmental practices/whatever it may be, and focus on that.

Quote

i've bought a few Woolrich varieties from the local vintage joint for work shirts.. a step up in price would be Uniqlo followed by M&S, SC, UES.. IH then RO with £1000 separating the cheapest from the most expensive for essentially something that looks quite similar.. even to me..

After I got married and could no longer indiscriminately throw cash at constant expensive clothing purchases, I got a lot more interested in trying to maximize my bang-for-the-buck factor: buying items that were high quality and would last a long time, but were also affordable. I found the trick to be getting secondhand purchases from Japanese sites like Mercari and Yahoo Auctions, where in particular I upgraded my shirt situation over the last few years by finding mostly Flat Head shirts in 9/10 condition for cheap on these sites. A variety of factors contributed, like a weak yen and Flat Head being at a pretty low ebb in the Amekaji consciousness compared to brands like Warehouse or Freewheelers, to push the value down so far, but it sure worked out well for me. I'm also big on brands like Denime, TCB, and Sugar Cane which offer very high value for the price.

With shirts, it was first-hand experience that "converted" me, back in fall 2011 I went to a local select shop where I lived in Japan and handled that red Flat Head Native Check western shirt and it was evident to me that every single aspect of the thing was miles ahead of any casual shirt I'd ever seen or touched. That being said, I'm pretty discriminating when it comes to shirts and there are a lot of shirts by high-end Japanese brands that don't have fabrics or other aspects which are really any different from what you'd find at a department store.

53 minutes ago, reubensangwich said:

I've been manipulated dammit! I had the same opinion on shirts - I was quite happy buying vintage Big Mac, Five Brother, and the like for $15-20 on eBay - but the more I scrolled the WAYWT thread this winter, the more the idea of a new, thick, Japanese made flannel tantalized me. I'd always denounced Iron Heart as comically expensive, though I had to admit their UHF made me curious. After finding one new with tags on eBay for "just" $175, I pulled the trigger. When it came in I was genuinely stunned at how beautiful it was, I immediately started checking stockists for sales and bought another the next day 😅 

But, they are helping me make it through this particularly frigid winter with a bit less bulk under my jacket, so maybe the manipulation was a good thing. 

 

I got an IH flannel back in fall of 2019 and had it for several years. I never liked it very much. Although warm, the fabric reminded me more of a dense kind of blanket than a conventional flannel, and although it had nice colors the weave itself was uninteresting. The Iron Heart fit didn't work well for my body type, but that obviously varies from one person to the next. Where Iron Heart really lost points for me was in the construction, the stitching was bright orange polyester that never softened up or broke in. Though the shirt's construction and quality exuded technical precision, I felt it was completely soulless.

In comparison, my Flat Head flannels have much more of a handmade quality, between the selvedge fabrics with tons of texture and personality, and the all-cotton stitching done on vintage machines which has a much more pleasing tactile feel and comfortable break in over time. I bought most of them secondhand for a fraction of Iron Heart prices, making them a vastly better value for me. Several of my Flat Head shirts I've worn since 2011 and they're still going strong, and others I bought secondhand were from the mid-late 2000s yet with little sign of wearing out.

I don't think IH shirts are objectively bad at all, and the factors which mean a great deal to me, are things that are probably irrelevant to most other people, but it is hard for me to justify the price for what it is. If new Iron Heart shirts cost $200-250 or less and there was less hype surrounding them, I think the whole situation would be a bit less of an eyebrow-raiser for me. I just wish more people knew there were other options for nice shirts out there which are a lot less than Iron Heart.

[oomslokop]

Did you jump onboard or not../ how fking sufu actually are you?

Size down craze.. No

Slept in jeans.. Yes 

Diors.. No

Fancy wallet.. Yes,  No!No!Yes! origami wallet (still use it to this day)

Engineer boots.. No

Ocean wash.. No

Resolute washing / fit having previously not.. No

Never washing.. No (live in the tropics)

Coffee wash.. No

Slubby or streaky.. None

Heavy oz denimz.. 17oz heaviest ever (Tender denim)

Joined a contest.. No

Joined a tour.. Yes (@Bobbo's Warehouse tour on sufu, @Duke Mantee's Bootleggers and Leroy Strauss tours on Denimbro)

APC.. No

Fancy washing detergent.. No

Worn denim while raw.. Yes

Paid for an expensive repair.. No

Wallet jewelry.. No

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots.. Not boots but shoes

Numerous pairs of identical jeans.. No

Numerous fancy leather belts.. Just one, Tender belt, love it still

Native American Japanese jewelry.. Hell no

Jacket suitable for the Arctic.. No (live in the tropics)

Unreadable Japanese language magazines.. Yes yes

Dressed like a sailor.. No

Dressed like a miner.. No

Dressed like an urban lumberjack.. No

Mill repro.. Yes

Dressed like a railway worker.. No

Stacked.. Yes (Dry Bones, loved it, inseam was a crazy totally impractical 39 inch!)

Starch..No

Freezer.. No

Fancy socks.. Yes

Handmade English shoes.. Yes Cheaney FTW

Whites Semi Dress.. No

Discharge print.. Yes

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining.. Yes

Photo of jeans in bathtub.. No 

Wore jeans wet.. No way

£2000 leather jacket.. No

Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era.. No

Colored weft denim: No

Has at least a decade's worth of denim in the closet, unworn? No. Have basically stopped buying sufu or even sufu-adjacent clothing. Want some Tender shirts but no moolah

Bought jeans nobody else owned.. No but have a Rising Sun prototype jacket only 6 of which were ever made (apparently). got me recognized by other sufu members in london not once but twice

Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans.. Not really into scat

Denim meet up - Yes with @bartlebyyphonics we spent half a day walking around savile row, soho, and environs checking out galleries and some shops (clutch) discussing everything from at last co's weirdly weak top button to hito steyerl. it was a lovely day. thanks bartles!

EDIT to add

Used a proxy/Google-translated email to buy something from a Japanese shop…Yes many love letters to 2nd

Posted photos of myself wearing denim-related clothing to a bunch of strangers on a public forum… I have GAD and depression not NPD

Please contribute..

Edited February 26 by oomslokop
more deetz

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I'm curious when Neat Style Official's in-house jeans will be sued because of copyright infringements by.
They are vey "similar" to Eat Dust

 

https://www.cultizm.com/de/denim/jeans/41940/eat-dust-fit-73-loose-tapered-selvedge-denim-indigo-blue-13oz

[Double 0 Soul]

You pulled that out of the bag Ooms.. !

3/4s of the way down.. it was like you'd nvr heard of the place.

Clothing aside.. i turned away from consumerism years ago @Cold Summer the only reason i still buy expensive things is because i don't want to buy them again .. i've only ever owned 3 laptops.. my DSLR is 20+yrs old.. I've only recently got a secondhand iphone having not owned a phone for years and not because i wanted one.. just became life became so difficult / bordering on the impossible without one.

But i do have a collectors mentality which left unchecked, gets a bit out of control.. before my kid was born.. his soon to be bedroom was my clothing / sneaker storage room.. i had two metal shop rails on wheels full of jackets, you could barely open the door without knocking over boxes of sneakers pilled up to the ceiling.. i was buying stuff and just shoving it in the room.. out of sight.. out of mind.

When my kid was born in 2009.. i realised how little any of it meant to me and just took the collection back to current wearers / what would fit in the wardrobe.

It didn't stop.. it just slowed down momentarily while i adjusted to parenthood, then i started buying jeans again..  i thought i'd buy a pair of engineer boots.. but because i don't want to "buy cheap buy twice" i bought an insanely expensive pair.. and because of the previously mentioned 'collectors mentality' within 12mths i'd spent £6000 on a small collection of hand made boots.. this was on top of my lace up boots.. every pair was black (same with the lace ups) they all looked the same

I was the first person outside Japan to buy Clinch from Brass..(you can probably blame me for the CSF thing too)  did i wear any of these boots.. no not really, my life centered around my kid, all my leisure time was spent knee deep in mud wearing wellies.. out in the woods fishing, collecting tadpoles, bike riding, camping or hiking in the Peaks.. i rarely got the opportunity to wear £1600 boots (so why did you buy so many?... good question)  i decided to wear the cheapest pair of fancy engineers in the workshop (that is their intended purpose after all) but they were fucked in a few short months so i sold them on.

I spent years and 100s of hours painstakingly collecting every colour of ultra-rare 1990s era Buckweat sneakers.. never wore any of them and sold them on to MJF9 for a song

When we moved house 7ish years ago i had another rethink /  sell off.. it's these life affirming moments like kids being born, house purchases which makes me reassess.. i haven't bought any sufu-related clothing since 2017.. the last item being a Stan Ray SunSurf shirt from PSA.

The social commentators will tell you.. "buying clothing always leaves you wanting more, feeling unfulfilled and empty inside".. i've got to admit, it was all a massive waste of money but i did thoroughly enjoy it.. researching, tracking down and buying rare items of clothing was exciting and with that gone, there is less joy in my life.. but do i feel happier and more contented inside?.. absolutely not.. i feel exactly the same.

[beautiful_FrEaK]

1 hour ago, Double 0 Soul said:

i haven't bought any sufu-related clothing since 2017

not one single vintage SugarCane jeans?!

[Double 0 Soul]

10 minutes ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

not one single vintage SugarCane jeans?!

Shush! You.. you’re ruining my narrative 

[Cold Summer]

@Double 0 SoulThanks for sharing, I really enjoy hearing your takes on the hobby as somebody who's been through the whole collector thing and beyond. I'm much the same way with things like electronics, for all the flak Apple (often justifiably) gets, I've gotten a ton of longevity out of their stuff. I've been using the same Macbook for ten years now and it still works just fine, and in that same time I used an iPhone 6S from 2015-2021, and an SE from 2021-present. It's tricky working around planned obsolescence in so many things.

One thing discouraging me from going toward more collector impulses is that I can very easily get decision fatigue, when I have too many choices of what to wear I start to get anxious and have trouble deciding what to wear, and at that point it stops being fun, so that keeps me in check. I usually wear just one pair of jeans for a long stretch, and mix in a pair of chinos, salt and pepper trousers, and maybe a faded pair 1-2 days a week. I have four pairs of boots, a few pairs of sneakers, a few jackets and sweaters, and a bunch of shirts and tees (relative to the rest of my wardrobe), which is where most of the variety occurs. I find this gives me enough variety to keep from getting bored, while keeping it easy to make good outfits without having to think too hard about it.

I tend to make new purchases based on probably-too-elaborate internal mental calculation about filling a perceived gap in my wardrobe, or attempting to upgrade some aspect or other (for instance, recently I think, maybe I should try to get a black lace-up boot to replace the function of my black 70s Chucks I've worn heavily for the last ~7 years, like a Viberg Service boot, Lofgren M-43, or Combat boot.) A lot of the time this involves waiting until just the right moment or circumstances to buy some expensive thing, with my Flat Head leather jacket being probably the standout example of this. Some folks go through dozens of black leather jackets trying to find the right one, and I waited until something with just the right measurements and my desired specs appeared, and managed to get it at a good price, and I've been quite satisfied having taken this approach. Another example, I'd buy a pair of SCSC 1943 jeans if Self Edge or Franklin & Poe puts them on discount or sale, to wear Someday, but not right now at retail price.

I get probably more enjoyment out of the clothing hobby than I really should as a married guy with kids and all that, but I guess I find that it helps to have something I can enjoy when I'm in the midst of hysterical toddler behavior or doing chores or some other tedious aspect of everyday life. I have a lovely Rickenbacker bass that's surely the nicest thing I own right now, but given the present circumstances I hardly ever get to play it. I'm always wearing a good pair of jeans and a cozy shirt though, so the clothes are easier to justify to some extent because the demands of family life don't stop me from using/enjoying it.

If I were you, I'd take one of my awesome banged-up pairs of jeans and try my hand at home repairs to make them wearable for weekends and casual wear. Getting them professionally repaired would surely be prohibitively expensive, but doing it yourself might be fun, and should be cheap, and I'm sure the results would earn you massive rep on here almost no matter how awkwardly it turned out at first. 😅

 

[Maynard Friedman]

Size down craze.. No

Slept in jeans.. Yes, out of necessity or drunkenness but not for the fadezzz

Diors.. No

Fancy wallet.. fancy-ish. A Googies wallet with coin pouch but very plain, no adornments, or chain connector, etc

Engineer boots.. No

Ocean wash.. No

Resolute washing / fit having previously not.. No, the thought of this makes me cringe

Never washing.. Never!

Coffee wash.. No. Why?!

Slubby or streaky.. is this for a Tinder profile? Had 2 pairs of Edwin ED69s years ago, which were a bit streaky 

Heavy oz denimz.. No but Ande Whall once sent me a decent size scrap of 21oz denim for my handling pleasure

Joined a contest.. No

Joined a tour.. only a Saga coach tour!

APC.. No, but I’ve bought Mrs F 2 pairs

Fancy washing detergent.. I’ve received a couple of packets of SC detergent with orders from Naoki at PSA but never used them. I use Ecover non-bio

Worn denim while raw.. Yes, some Nudie Regular Ralf’s many moons ago. Fast forward crotch blowout!

Paid for an expensive repair.. I’ve paid for a number of repairs but none were expensive

Wallet jewellery... Of course not

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots.. Yes, English boots from Northampton shoemakers but not anywhere near the cost of Japanese engineer boots

Numerous pairs of identical jeans.. Naturally

Numerous fancy leather belts.. Nothing particularly fancy, a few Italian made plain Edwin belts

Native American Japanese jewelry.. No

Jacket suitable for the Arctic.. Yes, Spiewak N3B

Unreadable Japanese language magazines.. Oh yes!

Dressed like a sailor.. Mainly when working as JPG’s stunt double. Also have a peacoat so probably more often than I thought!

Dressed like a miner.. No, but I dig it

Dressed like an urban lumberjack.. Guilty. Eek!

Mil repro.. Yes, primarily jackets/coats but more military-inspired than strict military repro

Prison steez… No

Dressed like a railway worker.. Every day when I go to work as a ticket inspector on the London Underground 🤣

Stacked.. That’s what she said!

Starch.. I’ve added added it to the wash once or twice in the past but didn’t like the smell and not post-noughties

Freezer.. No

Fancy socks.. Fancy-ish but not Japanese prices. I’m talking Burlington, Paul Smith £££

Handmade English shoes.. Yes, far too many

Whites Semi Dress.. Nope

Discharge print.. Yes

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining.. I don’t really know what this means.

Photo of jeans in bathtub.. No 

Wore jeans wet.. Briefly, if I thought they needed to be stretched out

£2000 leather jacket.. No, no leather jacket. I’m not Arthur Fonzerelli

Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era.. Yes, two Type 1s

Colored weft denim: No

Has at least a decade's worth of denim in the closet, unworn? Probably closer to a century’s worth…

Bought jeans nobody else owned.. Naturally

Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans.. As a father and pet-owner, yes but never my own fluids 

Denim meet up - I’ve met Dr Heech, Mr Black and bumped into Paul T.

Worn triple denim…No

Used a proxy/Google-translated email to buy something from a Japanese shop…Yes

Posted photos of myself wearing denim-related clothing to a bunch of strangers on a public forum… Not a chance!

[Geeman]

Late to reply but killing time waiting for Eurostar 

Size down craze.. Yes but not to APC levels 

 

Slept in jeans.. Yes, in IH.  Never again 

 

Diors.. No

 

Fancy wallet.. Yes

 

Engineer boots.. No not my style 

 

Ocean wash.. No

 

Resolute washing / fit having previously not.. No, always end up washing around the same point. As soon as I think they need a wash!

 

Never washing.wash see above

 

Coffee wash.. No

 

Slubby or streaky Slubby,  but they always fade weird excluding PBJ denim 

 

Heavy oz denimz.. Yes 24oz R&H collab,  15oz is the sweet spot for me 

 

Joined a contest.. No

 

Joined a tour.. No but @smoothsailor saw me in Tokyo and never said hi!

 

APC.. No

 

Fancy washing detergent.. No

 

Worn denim while raw.. No

 

Paid for an expensive repair.. No but had some tapered via shipping to railcar in California

 

Wallet jewelry.. Yes, well a wallet rope. Very impractical 

 

Numerous pairs of very expensive boots.. No

 

Numerous pairs of identical jeans.. Yes 

 

Numerous fancy leather belts.. Not fancy but Handmade 

 

Native American Japanese jewelry.. No

 

Jacket suitable for the Arctic.. No

 

Unreadable Japanese language magazines.. No

 

Dressed like a sailor.. No

 

Dressed like a miner.. No

 

Dressed like an urban lumberjack.. Ish....

 

Mill repro.. Yes

 

Dressed like a railway worker.. No

 

Stacked.. No

 

Starch..No

 

Freezer.. No

 

Fancy socks.. Yes

 

Handmade English shoes.. Yes

 

Whites Semi Dress.. No

 

Discharge print.. No

 

Own less than 10% of the clothing you bought since joining.. Yes

 

Photo of jeans in bathtub.. No

 

Wore jeans wet..No

 

£2000 leather jacket.. No

 

Numerous repro denim jackets all from same era.. No

 

Bought jeans nobody else owned.. no

 

Barf / Man stain / Shit oneself in jeans ... maybe.....

Edited February 25 by Geeman

[Double 0 Soul]

2 hours ago, Cold Summer said:

@Double 0 SoulThanks for sharing, I really enjoy hearing your takes on the hobby as somebody who's been through the whole collector thing and beyond. I'm much the same way with things like electronics, for all the flak Apple (often justifiably) gets, I've gotten a ton of longevity out of their stuff. I've been using the same Macbook for ten years now and it still works just fine, and in that same time I used an iPhone 6S from 2015-2021, and an SE from 2021-present. It's tricky working around planned obsolescence in so many things.

 

If I were you, I'd take one of my awesome banged-up pairs of jeans and try my hand at home repairs to make them wearable for weekends and casual wear. Getting them professionally repaired would surely be prohibitively expensive, but doing it yourself might be fun, and should be cheap, and I'm sure the results would earn you massive rep on here almost no matter how awkwardly it turned out at first. 😅

 

 

Agreed.. my three previously mentioned laptops, first one i bought was from these smakheads .. they used to pull up in a car and rush the Tesco my near work running out with arms full of booze speed off in the car.. then go sell it around the nearby workshops.. one day i bought a laptop from them for something like £50.. it was fked, i had to manually defrag the thing daily .. then i bought a black Macbook A1181 in 2007 remember when they were either black or white?

I had it for years.. loved the thing, then my toddler knocked cherry juice over it and fried the motherboard, i hadn't backed it up for ages and it was full of my baby photos so i sent it away and had the HD put into a usb transport with a request to "please save my baby photos".. which they did and put them on a separate drive.. I've still got that HD it's messy but it's also full of the clothing photos from the old storage room days.. when i photographed them all to list them on ebay.. i'll pick through it one day and see what i can recover.. after that trauma, i bought a 2012 macbook pro which i'm still using today

I was an early adopter of phone tech.. not quite city-boy brick era.. but i did have a Sony H333 in 1993 (ish).. what folks called the mars bar phone.. this was in the days when some of my friends still used pagers.. i bought it from Dixons the highstreet electrical shop.. it was in the days before phone-shops existed.. even back then i was paying something like £28/mth line rental and 30p /min for off peak calls and 50p /min peak .. i used to get a new phone every year.. then one died in a cycling rainstorm so i bought a £20 burner from Tesco.. i left it on the beach in my pack while i was off catching crabs with the boy.. when i got back it was gone so i just thought fkit! i don't need a phone and i didn't have one for 5 or 6 years thereafter...

 

I've always repaired my own jeans (within reason)..  never been happy with any of the results, always drawn blood! .. i find that once they get to that stage their days are numbered.. my many hours spent results in justr a few more weeks of wear.. it's just not worth my (poor) efforts.. i have three pairs awaiting crotch repairs, now MrB has a darning machine.. i might send them all down for repairs..

 

Only sufu hook'ups i've had was Sugar Mountain (remember him?) i sold him some McCoys goodies.. he'd previously hooked up with Ranon, (maybe) flash and Ed a few times.. he did say Ed was far removed from his sufu persona.. a lot more sensible and 1000% less offensive.. in fact, quite charming!  I think he (SM) went to live in Taiwan or maybe Singapore.. (i can't quite remember) he married a girl from there..

[ATWM]

I enjoy these discussions @Double 0 Soul @Cold Summer

As for me, to be honest I’m actually uncomfortable with how much stuff I’ve bought over the last few years - much of it fantastic Sufu stuff. Some not, but just as nice. I keep telling myself I’ve stocked up and can just enjoy it all for the next decade plus. (Not uncommon!) 

I’ve liked clothes for as long as I can remember long time but was always totally hamstrung by finances - including growing up. Originally got into raw denim loving the idea of a really long lasting pair that you made your own, and my first pair was just that - I bought some Raleighs - a very stiff and unique chevron blue/black denim that were about ~$300 magically at a local Nordstrom Rack discount store in Raleigh, NC for $50 and wore them for a few years in rotation with a few cheap 511’s I already had and wanted nothing more. When that pair started to end its life and I decided to see what else was out there that might be a better pattern was when trouble started. After denim I’d say my primary interest was in indigo itself and natural dyes over, say, nice t shirts or workwear or Americana or mod subculture (happily writing in a Muji t shirt). 

I was at a pretty slow pace until the pandemic hit when I had more time to learn and my work of going out into the world and photographing was very limited. It was a covid rabbit hole of sorts. Then about a year or two after that my son had some life altering health shit happen at a very young age and while it clarified that nothing else much mattered, it also had the weird effect of me giving myself permission to just go nuts for awhile, especially after he returned to good health (which still seems miraculous to me - and is by no means future guaranteed). My son’s health episode traumatized everyone close to him, and we have a good amount of family nearby. So it didn’t help that my wife essentially became a bit (but only a bit) supportive of this weird retail therapy. 

I’ve always had a bit of a collector bug but it’s always been tempered by time, and my preference to just be outside doing shit - which is harder both during the pandemic and also in some phases of parenting. It’s never been as bad as some people I know, and I always told myself I was limiting it to photobooks - which is still my best, but still not great collection. But really I did start to collect some clothes along the way - specifically jackets followed by jeans. I’ve hardly sold anything I’ve picked up (aside from some fullcount pieces) and I really do enjoy what I’ve got, but partially joined the contest just to encourage slowing down. I really love the stuff that I’ve got and just try to wear it the best I can. 

Not sure I’ll ever go totally no buy. Being more realistic, at best I really want to get back to my old pace which was usually only a pair and a jacket a year or so.

The one sort of exception is that I really do like getting stuff from the really small brands and makers - especially like Tender or Ooe, or now WMJ or Duke too. It feels not so different than buying the books my friends write or photograph (except even better, really because they see more of the money), or buying their art. I want these people to continue to be able to survive from their unique talents, but it’s also objectively some of the best versions of the stuff that I’ve seen. Even Seichiiro at Hoosier is a great salesman and I’ve enjoyed transacting with him - we’ve talked about all sorts of non denim things on one occasion I put in an order to him and he returned and bought one of my small edition photography books, which my friend then saw in his shop while visiting Kyoto. Stuff like that is super fun, and has little to do with denim but wouldn’t have happened without it. 

I’m sure in 15-20 years or so, if my son doesn’t find my collection interesting (he probably won’t), I will move on from some of the items, and if I have my druthers, it really won’t be much more than I’ve got now and hopefully most of it has some more character at that point. Probably a nice story at most haha. 

[Geeman]

@Cold Summer makes a point which I can really relate too. Sometimes the amount of clothes I have makes deciding what to wear painful and detracts from the enjoyment of them. Add to this I got into a habit of almost outfit procrastination.. I wont wear item X now because I want to wait till I wear item Y with it and so never got round to actually wearing half of it. On top of that "babying" certain items , like not wearing certain shirts to go out and eat in case I get food / sauce spillage (never actually happened anyway!) 

All this made me slow down buying more clothes but now as I get older and body shape changes (weight training/distance running instead of martial arts &  middle aged spread...) I'm starting to replace some stuff while attempting not to get back into the unchecked shopping of the last 20 years or so. 

[Double 0 Soul]

Folks in the UK.. go look at the night sky people! it looks incredible..

The 7 planet alignment is on the 28th but it's so clear tonight.. i can see beehive without binoculars