Sugar Cane Denim

[reallypeacedoff]

22 minutes ago, julian-wolf said:

Is that true? I remember the lot 470 denim being very quick to give up dye, lots of examples floating around with pretty drastic fades

I saw one dude on Reddit showing his 4-year old pair of lot 470—many washes, "clubbing," et al—and they weren't that far along IMO. 

Then again, my SE pair are worn a couple of times a month max, so I wouldn't see any fading for a very long time.

[youngofthesoonest]

I'd say it's a pretty moderately fading black jean. I gave mine away to a friend so I can't a photo of it but this is the fading I got around 3 months of actual wear and a few washes. https://imgur.com/a/sugar-cane-black-1947-3-months-of-wear-5-washes-IiobBrs

[chicote]

I have a pair of 470s that i cut into shorts after a year or so of wear.. they faded slower than most of my indigo jeans but only by a bit. 

[Maynard Friedman]

Are the Sugar Cane ‘Made in California’ items a cheaper diffusion range? Does anyone know anything about them or have any experience of them?

[julian-wolf]

Made in California? Or just the “Sugar Cane California” line? SC California is almost all made in China, as far as I remember

[Maynard Friedman]

I mean ‘Made In California’ or ‘Made in USA’. Perhaps I was confusing it with the ‘SC California’ range as I remember @Double 0 Soul (I think) mentioning a body warmer he bought that had a California label and was made in China, like you just mentioned.

[julian-wolf]

The MiUSA line is legit, I think they use the same factory as Mister Freedom for their jeans?

[tooth]

Super Denim Collectibles 1942 and s1945 jeans and the s1945 blouse are available for preorder from barnstormer. I’ve preordered from them before and was a very good experience.

They mention expecting delivery in June 2025 (and that may be delayed)…

Edited October 21 by tooth

[beautiful_FrEaK]

Do you have to pay the whole price now? With the low Yen this could be in your favour, who knows how the Yen is in 8 months...

 

Now I only wait for Sugar Cane to also make a 1941 and 1944 model in 2026 so they have all years covered

[Mtvare]

Pull a few threads out here and there and you've got them!

[tooth]

@beautiful_FrEaK yeah, I think they require full payment now.

[indigoeagle]

Here is the new catalogue:
https://bookshelf.wisebook4.jp/html/toyoenterprise/55082/#1

[Dr_Heech]

45 minutes ago, indigoeagle said:

Here is the new catalogue:
https://bookshelf.wisebook4.jp/html/toyoenterprise/55082/#1

Those two pairs of 42's with the flasher and guarantee ticket shown lying next to each other must be the two pairs he said were 'the only two pairs in the world' (?)

So l'm guessing the other pair must be Larry's from Hellers Cafe which are also a 34x34 (the one's l posted in the vintage thread from King of vintage Vol. 4). If not then there are three pairs with flasher and ticket at least, or maybe when he said 'world' he meant Japan?

 

[indigoeagle]

8 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

Those two pairs of 42's with the flasher and guarantee ticket shown lying next to each other must be the two pairs he said were 'the only two pairs in the world' (?)

So l'm guessing the other pair must be Larry's from Hellers Cafe which are also a 34x34 (the one's l posted in the vintage thread from King of vintage Vol. 4). If not then there are three pairs with flasher and ticket at least, or maybe when he said 'world' he meant Japan?

 

Could the top pair (you're referring to the top pic on page 6, no?) be a Sugar Cane version like a prototype for in-house to compare how close everything is to the original?

I know it has arcs and a red tab. But the red tab is quite high. And the leather patch looks a bit different than the Levi's one, but it's difficult to see.

[Dr_Heech]

Actually it could even be a pair of deadstock 37's- they often have their tab placement high, near the hidden rivet area. 

Ohh speculation speculation

 😃

[indigoeagle]

22 hours ago, Dr_Heech said:

Actually it could even be a pair of deadstock 37's- they often have their tab placement high, near the hidden rivet area. 

Ohh speculation speculation

 😃

That could be the answer.
Possibly a teaser for upcoming models?
After all they could release the same range as LVC.
So very likely a 1937 model, perhaps 47, 55, 66. And why not 51 and 53.

[Dr_Heech]

Makes sense @indigoeagle And although l'm enjoying the stuff Sugarcane are releasing and looking forward to more (as I love their approach atm) for me to get fully committed to purchasing another pair of repros in the future,  they would have to be fully replicated (well at least a nice tab ala Freewheelers, the arcs l can send off to get done) so l'm just munching on my popcorn as usual. 

Edited October 25 by Dr_Heech

[julian-wolf]

^ Out of curiosity, Doc, if you’re comfortable w/ sending them out to get arcs added then what’s the mental block to just getting a tab sewn on at the same time?

[Dr_Heech]

On 10/24/2024 at 4:33 PM, julian-wolf said:

^ Out of curiosity, Doc, if you’re comfortable w/ sending them out to get arcs added then what’s the mental block to just getting a tab sewn on at the same time?

Oh good question. I think when l've tried sewing tabs in to jeans many moons ago (actually twice in all) l ruined the tabs and the og levis pockets in the process so never tried it since. Luckily my Mrs has done a few tab sewing operations and made a better job but they're not perfect. You can always see the join of the thread (alot of that was to do with the thread that was available at the time) I guess that and the fact that l sometimes just don't want a tab, for example l haven't bought any tabbed jeans since my conners several year's ago (2020?) opting for the pre tab 1920s models instead ( the FW1942'S being the exception). But l've stayed away from temptation with the Sugarcane stuff as l don't have any real disposable income atm and don't want mentally to start investing in yet more repro denim (let alone customisation) as l have enough atm if not more than enough jeans. I have 12 pairs l wear regularly which, apart from one pair, all have arcs. And all my post 1936 repros have tabs. Then l have the 42's on ice. Plus l don't wear jeans as often as I used to so ..

I guess there isn't a mental block but more of a liberating sensation when my nerdy denim ocd is sated, which it is atm . And also because l was able to say No to more denim and avoided the rabbit holes. So feeling good with what l have and less consumerist.  Plus if l'm gonna put down 250-300 quid plus on a pair of Levi's 501XX repros, l want the tab and arcs included in the price.

So basically l'm a fussy bugger who's who's got enough jeans who is also a denim snob 🤫

 

Edited October 25 by Dr_Heech

[jstavrin]

Pulled my old pair of 1966s out of the attic while digging out some sale items (https://www.instagram.com/jim.shoppe/  ). These *aren’t* for sale but they look neat!

 

[bod]

@jstavrin fantastic!!

[jstavrin]

17 hours ago, bod said:

@jstavrin fantastic!!

Thank you! Unfortunately, they’re too small for me now and I figure they always will be…

Edited November 5 by jstavrin

[Ciabatta]

13 hours ago, jstavrin said:

Thank you! Unfortunately, they’re too small for me now and I figure they always will be…

What’s in the current rotation??

[Double 0 Soul]

I'm in a reflective mood today..

 

In the early to mid 90s i was living in a shithole of a bedsit and barely affording my £28/wk rent.. when it came to buying clothes, my budget wouldn't stretch to new so i just bought vintage.. In the days before the internet, i had no clue as to what i was buying other than the fact they were old Levi's and a quarter of the price of the 501s you could buy on the high street.. 

 

A couple of years passed and i started to earn a bit more £££s.. i bought a pair of 555 LVC-47s.. in retrospect, this was probably the first time it occured to me that the vintage Levi's i'd been buying previously could be from different eras (ikr? .. you internet kids don't know you're born) around 2003 i bought another pair of LVC and wanted to get them hemmed.. back then I didn't know what a Union Special was, all i knew was i wanted the hem to be the same as the existing hem.. ie- 'not single stitch' .. i took them to a laundrette who did alterations but they said they couldn't do it.. i would have to find someone with a machine that could chainstitch.. i went down to Ted Williams.. a proper old boys tailor on London Rd who said he could chainstitch but it wouldn't look exactly the same because the hem was done with a chainstitching machine rather than a sewing machine with a chainstitch setting.. plus he didn't think his needles would be strong enough to penetrate the layers of denim.. more confused than ever, i found myself down a gennel and up a rickety fire escape to Terrace Tailors on a Sheffield backstreet.. the room had a massive cross on the wall with candles either side and a polaroid of the tailor himself kissing the hand of Pope John Paul II ..?  

 

I explained what i wanted and tape measure around his neck. he took me into another room with a rail full of clothing.. top rail was garments waiting to be altered, bottom rail was altered..  (this is the single most significant part of my entire journey through the denimsphere) he pulled out a pair of SC-47s and showed me the hem.. it blew my tiny mind.. i didn't even know Japanese repros existed.. i almost had to go light one of the candles

 

He said they were from a small menswear shop in Sheff called Brother 2 Brother.. he would hem them (a little longer to allow for shrinkage?) using his sewing machine which could chainstitch.. I knew where B2B was, i'd just never been in, they stocked the likes of Maharishi, D&G, Margaret Howell, Dries Van Noten and such.. (high end streetwear through to mid-range fashion labels) this was well before the 2008 heritage boom so 'menswear' didn't yet equate to costly workwear, shops following the JP retail model didn't exist back then.. Nigel Cabourn was still designing highstreet tat for Debenhams rather than pricey Everest-wear.  

 

The guys who worked at B2B were always immaculately dressed (in their shiny shoes) i just wasn't (in my tatty randomly sized vtg Levi's, or skateboard jeans from a previous lifetime . i never went in because my pockets were never deep enough to buy anything, the labels were not my steeze and i felt intimidated by the smartly dressed staff, all of whom were a good 10yrs older than me.. but i was desperate to go nerd out over the Sugarcanes.. 

 

Niro (the UK distributor of SC) was established as a clothing store in 1986 but i'm not sure exactly when they became the Sugarcane distributor so maybe these SCs came from Niro or maybe they were bought retail by the B2B buyer on a trip to Japan?..  either of these explanations could account for the eye watering price tags.. my questions were many and looking back.. i think they knew as little about these jeans as i did.. they gave me a 2003 Sugarcane Catalogue (to shut me up) which i've kept.. I think this was the first catalogue Sugarcane ever produced, i've never seen anything predating it. it's on the cusp of the SC product codes after they moved on from M .. it's more substantial, more of a yearbook than the magazine type catalogues which would come thereafter.. in the months following i bought a marked down pair of SC-47s from B2B, returned by a customer because they were too small after washing... the sufu sizedown 3 craze was yet to happen

 

A couple of years later, B2B moved premises to a larger retail space underneath the recently opened West One development (across the road from The Designers Republic) a friend of mine did the electrical work for the shopfit.. he got me the 2006 Sugarcane catalogue, it was in here that i first spotted the LoneWolf Mechanic boots.. the 2010 catalogue which i've posted here previously (MF thread.. years ago) came from Vari.

 

 

I couldn't afford B2B asking price for Sugarcanes so i found myself on the internet.. Hirofumi Udono at Vari was great to deal with, he spoke perfect English and was willing to ship internationally. He lined me up with Hawaii's, Lonewolf boots, Whitesville & Cushman sweats..ect..  i was wearing SC-47s around the time my kid was born in 2009.. (another reason why I’m so attached to them) i didn't do WAYWT back then.. i didn't have the balls but seen here (blurry candid shot) loading the car up with Woolrich Woolen Mills, chambray Upland shirt from the Daiki Suzuki era

 

 

I found myself here at sufu around 2006/7.. anyway.. enough of all this reminiscing.. Maynard spotted these while searching for his recently acquired SC-66 and gave me a hola..

 

 

..knowing my pathetic inability to resist.. i didn't .. so In a nostalgic denim haze, i've dug out the rest of my SC-47 collection.

 

 

..first 4 pairs are raw denim, last pair are current wearers but previously o/w, check out he different hues

 

..from left, 1991-1997.. 2003-2007

 

 

I took this shot of he o/w pair back in 2013 before chucking them on the pile

 

 

..i've just got them back from a hem job at soas so i've recreated it

 

A bit more graff, a few extra MMs on the waistline and the JMC sweat is a little more faded

 

 

2003 & 2006 Catalogues can be seen here

 

 

 

Edited November 6 by Double 0 Soul

[Maynard Friedman]

Great post Neal, it’s always interesting to hear people’s selvedge denim origin stories and also to see your raw SC collection posted in all its glory. I’ll remain on the lookout for you 👀

[beautiful_FrEaK]

They look glorious! And also thank you for sharing the memories.
I heard from another user who recently acquired an old stock SC47 with arcs  (you know who you are!)

[Double 0 Soul]

He’s waiting to see how much my o/w stretch back out in the waist 

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I know  And if not..would you take his W34 for an oversized look?

[jstavrin]

On 11/5/2024 at 11:41 AM, Ciabatta said:

What’s in the current rotation??

So those jeans were the last pair I put serious wear into, mainly due to the WFH/pandemic era putting an end to bike commutes and, well, moving around regularly. Wore some WWII Buzz jeans for a bit after the SC1955z, which had a very early and demoralizing crotch blowout (stitching was never quite right). I started wearing buzz chinos more and more as well. 

These days, the Brycelands 133s and 933 (black) are the two I cycle between. Fabrics are about what you’d expect from any nice JP brand but their fit is phenomenal, the best I’ve ever found for me. 

[Double 0 Soul]

More old SC-47s

Edited November 11 by Double 0 Soul