Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[MJF9]

I was thinking of getting last minute tickets for tomorrow... but realised I'm busy 👀

[MJF9]

7 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Did anyone else watch the Sumo tonight, coming from the Royal Albert Hall?

What was it like?

[Maynard Friedman]

I was watching it on my phone (BBC website), it was entertaining - both the wrestling and the ceremonial antics. I wasn’t keen on all the sponsorship though - this bout is brought to you by Suntory, etc, etc. No mention of our kind of brands though!

It took me back to watching Sumo on Channel 4 in the 80s!

[MJF9]

A step up from 80s wrestling on Grandstand then! Will see if I can find it this weekend

[indigoeagle]

So I combined a visit to friends with a visit of the Denim Days.
Very enthusiastic and friendly the jeans someliers of MTK. They had lots of second hand jeans on offer and also a very nicely curated selection of niche brands such as Little Hand, Rocket, and Denim Bridge.

Also great stuff at Outpost Vintage from Utrecht. A lot of vintage RRL, LVC, Levis, RMC and much more.
Some guys bought bags full of vintage clothes there.

Cool stuff also from Indonesia NBDN, Indigo People, Captain Santors, Allevol and much more.

 

 

[indigoeagle]

 

 

 

 

[indigoeagle]

[indigoeagle]

[smoothsailor]

wish  i saw more these kind of clothing worn in every day life here in Holland.

I lived two a few doors down from that building.

[Dr_Heech]

Love that CCC wool A-1 style jacket.

[Broark]

13 hours ago, indigoeagle said:

I've been wanting to try out the Hands-On jeans for some time now, any thoughts on how they looked in person?

[Double 0 Soul]

We've just had an Asda delivery, they didn't have our usual Fairy washing detergent so they offered us Dylon as a substitute.. it revitalises colour and repairs fibres apparently

I ran this old pair of McCoys through the wash

The results are amazing!

[Dr_Heech]

😂 ^that is class

[indigoeagle]

14 hours ago, Dr_Heech said:

Love that CCC wool A-1 style jacket.

I think, that's a RMC one in 44.

[indigoeagle]

8 hours ago, Broark said:

I've been wanting to try out the Hands-On jeans for some time now, any thoughts on how they looked in person?

I just had a quick look. But they all looked great. 
If I remember it, the Hands-On as a WWII model reminded me of my made in Japan LVC 1944 denim wise, kind of Cone style.
And the thread were a strong yellow.
The MTKN guys also have a website. And I'm sure, if you contact them, they can give you more information.
Here is actually the page of that pair. It says "orange" thread. I might have mixed that up with some other jeans. Not sure.

https://mtkn.nl/shop/newproducts/jeans/handson_s47/

 

[UkeNo]

*Removed - already discussed above

Edited October 20, 2025 by UkeNo

[PartTimeBarista]

Hope this is ok. Forgive me or scroll past if not. Attended my grandfathers funeral this weekend. They don’t make men like him anymore. In my opinion, the reason why photos from the 40s, 50s, 60s are so iconic and why we love reproductions from that era is that the people were just so naturally and effortlessly cool. In fact, for as long as I can remember, my grandfather was known to me as Grandpa “Dude”. 

He was an excellent angler and hunter, and he dabbled in farming and cattle raising, all learned by necessity to get by. But his true gift was with small engines. He sold and serviced chainsaws, lawn mowers, and string trimmers for 50 years. In this age of planned obsolescence and ever advancing throwaway culture, it never was a lucrative career, and increasingly less so as people turned to equipment that was cheaper to replace than to repair. 

My grandpa was rough around the edges, especially in his younger days. He was a hard drinker for many years, until he lost his cousin to a drunk driving accident. He also was a heavy smoker from his teenage years until my youth, when he had his first heart surgery. Him and my devout grandmother were probably an unlikely pair when they were married at 18 and 19, but then again the wedding took place just 7 months before my mother was born. Their marriage was also from a different time, when people worked on things and repaired things rather than throw them away. They had just celebrated 64 years last month.

He was authentic blue collar - his work uniform as long as I knew him was a short sleeve blue work shirt with a pocket protector full of pens and small screwdrivers, Wrangler Rustler jeans, and custom Red Wing work boots. 

Years of hard living, and just living, eventually had worn down his body over the last few years. He passed after complications from open heart surgery. I’ll have fond memories of playing cards, baling hay, the summer in college I worked for him at his shop, our many trips to his cabin in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and fishing. In fact, from the picture slideshow at the visitation, you would have even thought I was an earnest fisherman from the sheer amount of pictures of all of us with strings of Northern Pike.

My grandpa on the right

High school senior picture

Me as my grandpa, Halloween 1999

Edited October 27, 2025 by PartTimeBarista

[Cold Summer]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing. He was quite a guy!

[PBTony]

43 minutes ago, PartTimeBarista said:

Hope this is ok. Forgive me or scroll past if not. Attended my grandfathers funeral this weekend. They don’t make men like him anymore. In my opinion, the reason why photos from the 40s, 50s, 60s are so iconic and why we love reproductions from that era is that the people were just so naturally and effortlessly cool. In fact, for as long as I can remember, my grandfather was known to me as Grandpa “Dude”. 

He was an excellent angler and hunter, and he dabbled in farming and cattle raising, all learned by necessity to get by. But his true gift was with small engines. He sold and serviced chainsaws, lawn mowers, and string trimmers for 50 years. In this age of planned obsolescence and ever advancing throwaway culture, it never was a lucrative career, and increasingly less so as people turned to equipment that was cheaper to replace than to repair. 

My grandpa was rough around the edges, especially in his younger days. He was a hard drinker for many years, until he lost his cousin to a drunk driving accident. He also was a heavy smoker from his teenage years until my youth, when he had his first heart surgery. Him and my devout grandmother were probably an unlikely pair when they were married at 18 and 19, but then again the wedding took place just 7 months before my mother was born. Their marriage was also from a different time, when people worked on things and repaired things rather than throw them away. They had just celebrated 64 years last month.

He was authentic blue collar - his work uniform as long as I knew him was a short sleeve blue work shirt with a pocket protector full of pens and small screwdrivers, Wrangler Rustler jeans, and custom Red Wing work boots. 

Years of hard living, and just living, eventually had worn down his body over the last few years. He passed after complications from open heart surgery. I’ll have fond memories of playing cards, baling hay, the summer in college I worked for him at his shop, our many trips to his cabin in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and fishing. In fact, from the picture slideshow at the visitation, you would have even thought I was an earnest fisherman from the sheer amount of pictures of all of us with strings of Northern Pike.

My grandpa on the right

High school senior picture

Me as my grandpa, Halloween 1999

Sorry for your loss. He sounds like a great guy and an even greater Grandpa. Love how you dressed up as him for Halloween! 

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

@PartTimeBarista sorry for your loss. I bet he was an awesome grandpa. 

[MJF9]

@PartTimeBarista sending best wishes... thanks for posting

[ashgiovanni]

Just saw on Reddit that Mount Vernon Mills acquired the old Cone Mills shuttle looms that Vidalia Mills had

 

https://www.gq.com/story/vernon-mills-selvedge-denim-draper-looms

[Cold Summer]

It'll be interesting to see if they have more success than Vidalia did. I'm surprised that Toyo hasn't bought them all up and opened their own mill in the USA. Don't laugh; this strategy worked out great for Toyota and Honda! And weaving denim is a whole lot simpler than manufacturing cars.

Edited October 31, 2025 by Cold Summer

[ATWM]

Mt Vernon has the size to make this a sort of passion project - and a lot of resources to hit the ground running. Who knows whether it works but should be a different situation than Vidalia, which had to make them profitable and relied solely on this niche business. 

[Double 0 Soul]

9 hours ago, Cold Summer said:

 I'm surprised that Toyo hasn't bought them all up and opened their own mill in the USA. Don't laugh; this strategy worked out great for Toyota and Honda! And weaving denim is a whole lot simpler than manufacturing cars.

You might be onto something here.. only foreseeable issue

If they export the fabric to be patterned and stitched in Japan, it would still incur tariffs on import .. Manufacturing the full Sugarcane catalogue in the US wouldn't work either because you'd have to accept an inferior standard..  (MiUSA Sugarcane has always been notoriously second rate compared to MiJ Sugarcane).. if you import Japanese labour  they'd get deported by ICE .. but the workaround is also the best case scenario.. Toyo could just make their WW2 denimz in the USA. the workers could do so to the best of their ability and the results would be a perfect reflection of WW2 restrictions  .. we'd get the wonkiness without it feeling forced, a'la CSF .. 

"MiUSA, cone denim, unintentionally wonky, Sugarcane war model" Phwoar! .. Now that's what you call a super denim collectable. I'd like to say they'd be cheap and mass market like workwear should be.. alas, they'd be $800 

[Cold Summer]

You're right, I didn't think about the fact that in the case of the auto industry, those cars made in the US are 99% for the domestic market and aren't sent back to Japan. (But they are mostly made by American labor, which in theory could be the case here, too, though I'm sure some Japanese expert oversight would be useful for quality control?) If eg. Toyo were making fabric domestically to sell primarily to US-based brands, it would be a pretty good arrangement/maybe fairly profitable for them. And since they already have some MIUSA jeans production, they've kind of already got the stuff in place to actually make them here. But alas, compared to the demand for cars there's not much demand for specialty enthusiast denim stuff, so the economics likely wouldn't make much sense.

[Double 0 Soul]

What happened to the wooden floor does anyone remember?..  I’m sure I read about it then subsequently forgot 

 

[redragon]

13 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

What happened to the wooden floor does anyone remember?..  I’m sure I read about it then subsequently forgot 

 

Might be wrong but I think the wooden floor is still around, take over with some of the Drapers loom by Proximity mills

https://www.wolfdenim.org/proximity

Edited November 1, 2025 by redragon

[Double 0 Soul]

1970s Vintage Wrangler bike

The saddle is covered in Wrangler denim 😍

[Thicolas Rage]

@Double 0 Soul this is great. MKS pedals too?

missed opportunity to chainstitch the handlebars and use the runoff thread as the streamers…