Word of Mouth - The Crust & Fades Contest

[bartlebyyphonics]

following the @aho baggy fit: a pic less about the fade: more hobo layers and leg twist…

 

[nopal]

On 10/2/2025 at 3:39 PM, nopal said:

Five-wash @ 30 degrees, spin 800 for 45min.

Been on and off. I imagine they’ll stay on in the time to come.

No wild lifestyle activities here to tear them up 😊

Six-wash, same cycle as last. Back to wearing most days of the week.

[bartlebyyphonics]

some studies in blue (1)

blustery brighton and damp on the line…

 

[bartlebyyphonics]

and another blue hues one…

meterology in lac leman (french side) and dried on a window…

 

 

[bartlebyyphonics]

lastly: caught looking crunchy in the golden hr sun on peckham station… 

 

Edited November 21, 2025 by bartlebyyphonics

[julian-wolf]

I've become pretty delinquent on the front of contest updates, so I'm hoping to post a few over the next week to bring things up to speed

When it comes down to it, though, I've just not been taking nearly as many photos of day-to-day life over the last 6 months or so as I usually have in the past…go figure

Garden updates come first, since that's where the jeans are most active

Our little tiny pepper plants are full of fruit (the Thai chilis are far from ripe, but they’re already hot hot hot! Haven’t tasted a jalapeño yet)

 

 

I’m trying to grow cup & saucer vines from seed, and it’s actually going pretty well

 

 

The first round of squash finished up, and we have late season gourds climbing high & wide

 

& A whole season of tobacco & zinnias (& just about everything else) came and went

 

Last but not least, I found out that our pampas grass is home to a family of newts!

[julian-wolf]

Misc. slices of late-summer life

Here’s the dosa that I eat for lunch a couple times a week

 

Here’s our mantel during marigold season

 

Here’s a dog lounging

 

Here’s me deciding to try out house plants (it’s going well)

 

Here’s what I recommend any visitors as the best food in the Bay Area (an extremely high bar, not to toot our own horn)

 

 Here’s dogs drinking on the trail

 

Here’s Texas barbecue, before & after

 

Here’s Halloween

[julian-wolf]

Most importantly, here’s the jeans

 

 

 

 

Love how the mispick in the denim on the back panel of the right leg is aging, & I’m waiting patiently at this point for the fabric over the back pocket rivets to wear the rest of the way through.

The hems are just about falling apart, but I’ve decided to let them. There’s a spot near the top of the right outseam that’ll need some attention soon, and the back pockets’ll want patching. Crotch and knees are still holding up okay.

Looking forward to the home stretch! I slowed down a lot over the last ~6 months, but am planning / hoping to pick back up from here on out

[ATWM]

^ Looking great. They’ve lightened up a lot! I’ve slowed down on mine too for the simple reason they’re a little too cold on half the days here lately…they’re still getting a few days a week though. 

 

[aho]

@julian-wolf didn't realize we're already submitting our end of contest pics? Seems you already won 😂

[Jared_Lee]

Looking good, @julian-wolf!

I just had my first round of repairs completed at S&S NYC. They do darning a little bit differently over there. Adding a light piece of muslin for patching and using that to support a much lighter application of darning produces a rock solid repair, but without that hard tack jerky feel of excessive darning I've gotten other places. The result is a soft, natural drape and feel after the repairs rather than a super stiff repair area that leads to tears in the immediate area around the repair.

Finally got some good light for proper color saturation in months as well, so here we go.

[Cold Summer]

Jeans look great Jared, interesting commentary on the repairs. I've had the seat fixed on several pairs and I actually like the thicker/stiffer darning repair there because, being somebody with a not-large rear end, that part tends to look saggy and sloppy over time (especially on lighter, 13.-whatever oz pairs) and actually looked more natural and flattering after the repair.

But on the knees, I'm in total agreement - I had the knees on my Warehouse 800xx darned and the massive, heavy duty repair completely changed the appearance and silhouette of the jeans for the worse, with the patched area sagging around it. It sounds like the lighter repair like you got would have been a better choice - as well as a smaller knee repair in general that only patched the smallest necessary area. I've seen plenty of smaller knee darning repairs (such as on @nizzel55's jeans) that were almost invisible and didn't change the overall look.

The last few years, I have in general tried to be much more careful about not scooting around on my knees (and bottom), which is harder when you have small kids (but not impossible.) The knees on the current Flat Head and TCB jeans I'm wearing have held up better/not faded disproportionately as a result. I've noticed that this is something that varies a lot by fabric - I found that both the Warehouse 800xx denim and Banner denim aged, faded, and wore out incredibly fast compared to some others, as the knees on both pairs were shot by 9 and 10 months of wear time, respectively. I've spent a lot of time in Flat Head denim, but never blew out the knees on any pair, even the 3005s I wore for around two years of real wear time, and the knees on my Full Count 1108 also held out pretty well and were fine when I retired them around 13 months of wear.

Edited November 28, 2025 by Cold Summer

[beautiful_FrEaK]

Definitely reduced the wear time in these 

[CSL]

Here's an update on my pair. They're still getting regular wear but not so much around the house as I tend to wear sweats when the weather gets colder.

Sunny afternoon pics on the bright side so I'm adding some photos taken inside this evening.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by CSL

[MJF9]

Great page all 👏

@CSL looking very nice... very pronounced creases on the left leg, more so that the right? What wear pattern is causing that out of interest?

[CSL]

17 minutes ago, MJF9 said:

Great page all 👏

@CSL looking very nice... very pronounced creases on the left leg, more so that the right? What wear pattern is causing that out of interest?

I wish I knew! That crease pattern set in very quickly and I have no idea why the one leg got more of them. It can't be due to leg twist because they've never been in water.

Edited December 3, 2025 by CSL

[bartlebyyphonics]

On 11/23/2025 at 4:54 PM, julian-wolf said:

 

Here’s what I recommend any visitors as the best food in the Bay Area (an extremely high bar, not to toot our own horn)

looks delicious: elaborate? pls?

[bartlebyyphonics]

On 11/27/2025 at 2:06 AM, aho said:

@julian-wolf didn't realize we're already submitting our end of contest pics? Seems you already won 😂

agreeing @julian-wolf winning in both fades and food/garden updates!

[bartlebyyphonics]

some london art visits: claire fontaine and arthur jafa… plus bonus camberwell graf

 

[julian-wolf]

@bartlebyyphonics Glad to give them a shout out

The spot is Cultured Pickleshop, run by the lovely couple Alex Hozven & Kevin Farley. They started in the late ‘90s, mostly selling jars & bottles of pickled goods through their stall at the weekly Berkeley farmers’ market. By the time I started working the markets in around 2014, they were one of the mainstays. The stall that I worked at was right across the street from them, so we got to chat a decent amount in passing, and I made a habit of keeping their cole slaw and kombucha stocked at home. They pickle just about any plant you can think of, and they’re very, very good at it.

Some time around 2018 or so, their kids were getting old enough to start helping run the Saturday markets, and that’s when they started offering prepared food out of their workshop in West Berkeley. They were open for like 3 or 4 hours a week, I think just on Sundays to start. Fixed menu, changing each week: you get a bowl of rice with a curated dozen-ish different pickled veggies on it, then you get a sweet bite. Glass of kombucha is optional and highly recommended.

When their younger kid (who’d been running the market stall solo for a couple years, by then) left for college in around 2021, they decided to stop doing markets all together and to focus their customer-facing energy all on the rice bowl operation. They started offering the bowls two days a week, and expanded their hours. I do miss seeing them around markets (and my house is now generally much less well stocked than it once was), but they seem to be doing very well for themselves, and I get the impression that getting to curate the different combinations of flavors adds an extra layer of joy & pride for them.

When we want a special weekend treat, it’s always high in the running. It’s not cheap (ends up coming to around $50 / person), but it punches way above its weight in every regard.

[julian-wolf]

Post-wash update

I think I skipped taking photos surrounding at least one or two washes over the summer, and in the process I completely lost count (oh well, it was bound to happen eventually). Probably around 8 or 9 washes total, now

The thighs and knees are on the verge of white, for better or for worse. On the other end of things, though, I’m starting to see quite a bit of contrast on the fly and on the waistband

 

The pocket bag denim is A++; I’m thinking of emailing Simo to see if he has any scraps left that I might be able to use for upcoming repairs

 

The big mystery that’s been on my mind is the horizontal line of fading that’s forming on the front of the lower right thigh, just above the knee. I’ve never seen that on any of my other jeans, and I can’t think of any personal habits that might cause it. My biggest suspicion is that it’s somehow related to the mispick in the denim on the back of the leg at around the same point. Maybe that little raised line is to blame, and the fading has all occurred during washing + storage?? Has anyone seen anything similar?

[vIGGiou riou]

wow. great job Julian...

[reallypeacedoff]

With almost a year of wear, I can barely see a comb on mine. My Samurais have more fading on the combs, and they are barely half a month old in wear. Holes are starting to form everywhere, great jeans though!

[ATWM]

no pictures of jeans but about 6 weeks ago i took some day hikes in Northern Michigan w/ my better half, and I was wearing the relevant pair. 

This past year, especially these past few months, I've gone back to making most of my pictures on film, save for jobs that need faster turnaround or when I have to deal with often obstinate airport security that will refuse a handcheck and ruin my shit. 

This means a longer delay in the pictures but I think I'm happier for it. Slapdash edit here. I photograph uprooted trees no matter what every time I come across them, have for years. Can't say exactly why...

[okimoto]

@ATWM beuatiful shots. Do you have a site for your photography?

[ATWM]

2 hours ago, okimoto said:

@ATWM beuatiful shots. Do you have a site for your photography?

Thanks.

Sure - may as well out myself, the pictures are links embedded from my site anyways. The site is kinda in overhaul mode as I turn it into more of an archive than a portfolio, but anyways.

www.peterghoffman.com

[julian-wolf]

Action shots

 

feat. Union Special cap, Pop Punch sweater, Russell moc's

Loving how these drape

[nopal]

On 11/19/2025 at 5:15 PM, nopal said:

Six-wash, same cycle as last. Back to wearing most days of the week.

Seven-wash, same cycle(ish) during my stay with the fam.

[Jared_Lee]

the denim

[aho]

I know we said the contest would run 18 months; If memory serves correct we started late January 2025, but do we have an exact date in June we'll come to close?