Cone Denim Mills thread

[braille_teeth]

ROY Denim (Roy Slaper) make some interesting looking jeans out of Cone Denim (14 oz shrink to fit American, Cone sx/vos) and also occasionally fabricate showpieces for the company itself.

[erk]

ROY Denim (Roy Slaper) make some interesting looking jeans out of Cone Denim (14 oz shrink to fit American, Cone sx/vos) and also occasionally fabricate showpieces for the company itself.

that looks like paul T's cotton duck bag...

[Paul T]

that looks like paul T's cotton duck bag...

You're right, but what I didn't notice before is that Cone have produced two cotton ducks, one of the bags featured is the paler duck from 1901 or so.

[mholmeslinde]

Anybody know anything about Cone's White Oak denim w the indigo (could be black...) selvedge line and very dark, almost black/purplish cast? Used on Tellasons Mellors.

I'm currently wearing the aforementioned Tellasons, and the denim is very interesting as it ages. Mild slub and cool crosshatched texture. Some vertical falling - we'll see how it goes, less than 2 months in.

[tropicalbird]

Could someone tell me what the product code means?

Red line selvage:

S/W 202 12.25 OZ @$9.99

S/XX68 12.5 OZ @$12.99

S/W 208 12.25 OZ @$9.99

S/W 233 13.25 OZ @$9.99

[erk]

thought I'd bump this up with some photos of some cone stuff.

1915

1937

NOS cone - intended for early LVC repros - I believe BLM mentioned this fabric in the LVC thread. Used for the Raleigh Denim 1966 jeans...which are still not ready

anyone else got any cool cone photos?

rnr, you got any new pics of those left fields?

[Paul T]

A few bits and pieces.

Firstly, 1944 LVC from 2009. THis is some of the nicest Cone denim I've seen; plain, no exaggerated slubbiness, and a lovely dark inky blue.

COne's new cotton duck; I lveo that this farbci si undergoing a resurgence. I hear Levi's have something up their sleeve in an indigo version, I can't wait to see it.

And some MF Californians. Obviously, it's great to see Cone STF fabric on other premium jeans. Cone are officially not allowed to sell STF style denim to other manufacturers than Levi's, so what a good thing that MF managed to find some old deadstock fabric?

this thread didnt get much action today so i'll post a few detail shots i took recently of my cali's

-did anyone else also notice discoloration on their buttons? what is that?

rivet

Cone vintage dungarees:

Wasn't sure what thread I should post this in. Thought it would probably get the most interest in here since they really reminded me of something MF would produce.

Saw this tag on a pair of bell-bottomed type Navy dungarees at my local Army/Navy surplus store. They were selling them for $3.99, but the biggest size they had was a 29.

Denim woven by Cone. Should have taken more pictures than just the tag.

Late 60s original Cone vs 1999 Cone, LVC 55:

And lastly, the Cone K87211 denim made for the Roy comp. THe warp thread is based on a 1910s spec; the weft, fill yarn, is a heavy Black Seed Pima.

[corporalclegg]

Ande Whall cone denim

[erk]

excellent. thanks for posting guys.

[erk]

Raleigh Denim indigo dyed canvas - O/W, really dark, beautiful, stiff 11 1/2 oz canvas, selvege, contrast red chain stitch - slim! Cone, White Oak Canvas Thanks to erk for the heads-up

macro of canvas

comparison with PBJ indigo dyed chino - softer, different weave, but also really nice

Raleigh Denim's indigo canvas from Cone mills. I need to get some better pictures of this stuff. It's pretty darn cool.

my band's keyboard player bought a pair of these on a whim - I couldn't believe it actually. but they were really starting to show some color the last time I saw him, and he'd only worn 'em for a couple weeks.

[Vinneus]

wish this thread was more active...

[Paul T]

Anything to keep you happy, vinn.

Mr Freedom Californians, from their website

And a Ralph THarpe interview for ya:

A sinful thing: Q&A with Ralph THarpe

Photo courtesy eltopo

Ralph Tharpe, at the White Oak factory in Greensboro, which has been producing denim for a century. Your denim could have been made on the very Draper loom he's standing next to. Possibly.

How do you think the fabric came out?

I love it. Roy sent me a pair way before for testing. Mine has the big ROY patch on the back.. his conventional jeans, but made with the loomstate fabric. And I tell you I am really liking them. And the hand is incredible because of the properties of the G. barbadense cotton in the weft.

Where is the cotton in the warp yarns from?

Probably Carolinas cotton – I'm not 100% sure. I know Texas cotton is a big thing in Japan at the moment and some of the best cotton in the world is grown in that state – but it depends on what you buy, there is a huge diversity, and there are real problems with some Texas cotton at the moment, due to the weather the tops of the plants were damaged, and much of the available fiber is rather coarse, opposite of what we need for nice ring spun yarns.

And the Pima cotton for the fill yarn?

That's probably grown in California or possibly Arizona. G. barbadense is a different species than regular upland cotton. The first successful variety was known as Sea Island Cotton which was grown on the coast of Georgia –*and the Carolinas. The seed migrated to Egypt to become Egyptian long staple, and then back to the US to become pima (named for the Pima indians of Arizona). Upland cotton was not really very successful until the invention of the cotton gin. THis fiber is longer, stronger, and finer than regular cotton, highly prized today for fine yarns. Cone just went back to this cotton with the thought that perhaps some early denims were made with Sea Island. It sure makes a great denim yarn!

Tell me about the dyeing.

It's traditional rope dyeing.. but there is a special secret technique applied that puts a little bit more dye on some of the yarn than others; it really simulates the ways that old fabrics looked from when they were dyeing in the old vats. In the old vat you don't have a consistent feed of the dye so it has a little more on one end of the rope than the other end. Then they do the second dip in the opposite direction so it evens out - but that never is completely the case, so in a lot of vintage denim you get that streaky appearance which is the dye and yarn in combination. Most people use twist of the yarn and mixing of yarns to replicate this differential dye uptake but Cone have a special technique they use – it's a secret I'm forbidden to pass on!

When you were putting the fabric on the loom you told me you were wondering whether to add a couple of picks. What effect would that have?

I wanted to make sure we got the right tightness of construction. Too many weft yarns per inch, the fabric can become too cardboard, too stiff. If you don't put enough then the fabric feels too open and too floppy. Although that floppy look is very popular right now. But the softness in this fabric is coming from the properties of that PIma.

There's a slight flame or variation to the fabric, tell me about that.

This is an effect you get on vintage fabrics but we don't get see that too much - because after they're worn it more or less disappears. Whenever you have a break on the spinning frame you would have what is called a lap; the cotton would begin to lap around a roll and at some point it could even damage the setting on the machine, even bend the roller and that would cause this heavy light, heavy light streakiness. And this fabric has some of that in there. We were trying to make the appearance as authentic as possible, not too even, not too slubby.

So you were aiming for an authentic look, without the exaggerated slubbiness you'll see on some selvage denim?

Exactly. When you see some of that exaggerated slubbiness - it's the difference between listening to a very fine recording on vinyl, and listening to the cell phone. You can tell this thing's not making the sound the way it should be. The same is true with the computer slubbiness. Slub that comes from a computer is only as good as the guy that designs it. Cone has the very best guy in the whole world in that field and his name is Allen Little. He's the one designed the yarn that went into this fabric. His picture can be found in the piece on Cone that was in Lightning Magazine.

Was this fabric all milled on one single Draper loom or several?

The ROY fabric was all from one loom; I didn't record the number of the loom - I should have!

You know there's some Cone cotton duck in the detailing of these jeans. Have you learned much about that fabric since Cone started reproducing it?

That duck was developed some time ago with Levi's. I was asking Neil [bell, of Levi's], why do I have to put the selvage line so far from the edge, and he was simply saying, That's the way I want it. Then Michael Harris sent me a scrap he'd found of the old yarn fabric from the turn of the century or before. The damn thing was made exactly like Neil wanted me to make. Brown duck with a black selvage line.. and the selvage line is away and on the outside of the garment. And this is in a scrap from the late 1800's.. it's unbelievable.

I was doing research, in the Callaway Textile Dictionary and elsewhere, looking up the particular weaves and it referred me to sailcloths. So I looked at the sail cloth definition and it said, in the UK the stuff was 24 inches wide, in the US 22 inches wide, and then they were 10 oz per linear yard - and it said there was a line in the fabric that was the guide for sewing the pieces together when making sails. The further the line is from the edge, the heavier the product. So without any question, things made from cotton duck with the line further away are Sail Fabrics!It is beautiful! I want to do more research on sailcloth, the dyeing et cetera. But can you imagine, in San Francisco in the 1870s, how there would be tons and tons of sailcloth around?

Was Cone making duck at the turn of the century?

Probably, i sure wish the sample book from 1896 had not been lost - I don't know if they kept the selvage further away like that.

Did you enjoy working with ROY?

He was great. He has always been so… insistent that he use the CONE fabric he wanted to. I hope he enjoys making these jeans out of loom state.

Tell me more about the Pima fill; how does that affect the feel?

The other thing about that yarn is that it has a very low twist. It makes the fabric look smoother. In that way it's like the exact opposite of the 1980s XX. The old XX marbles and gets the orange peel because of all the internal tensions as it's washed. The lower the twist, the smoother the fabric - and the more authentic. Fabrics today are made with very high level of internal energy – they're very nervous, uptight, so when you throw them in the water they go nuts, crinkle up, produce that orange peel effect. Fabrics made in the old way were woven more gently on the slower looms, with less tension.The Japanese call it gentle weaving. Cone looms are making gentle weaving every day.

That's poetry!

I know! And the weft yarn in the old days was spun directly on the the bobbin that goes into the shuttle. Because of that it was done at a very low twist. So that fabric was a lot more relaxed, it didn't have a lot of nervous energy. If you wore it in the normal way it would be both smoother and softer than anything we see today. That's why the pima fabric is so authentic, and soft, because of the twist and the cotton.

You mentioned this might be the last project that uses that particular yarn?

I don't believe there's any left now, and I'm not sure we could make any more because the price on the Pima now is about double what it was when we bought it. It's a very expensive proposition to make a heavy denim yarn out of that really nice cotton. It's probably a sin! That fibre is supposed to be used in yarns that are 80, 90, 100, 150, really fine shirting. To make a plain, old coarse denim yarn from it is probably a sinful thing. But we did it anyway.

Ralph Tharpe's Roy prototypes: The ROY Mk1 design, in k87211

[jaspar]

I secretly really dig these, however gimmicky:

a new pair of jeans from Engineered Garments’ smaller Progressive Clothing line. Made in NYC, various types of Cone Mills denim are arranged in a way to make them look like old school four panel “fun” shirts and pants.

http://s2w8-news.jugem.jp/?eid=123

Released in 7/10, so I'm sure they're long gone...

[Vinneus]

Great post Paul!

Jasper, they still have those at Nepenthes NYC, caught my eye! great display peice, never to wear doh!

[corporalclegg]

Starting to break in really nicely

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[ThisSunday]

Figured I'd post this here

Cell phone fade starting to appear

ROY x CONE

[rnrswitch]

Speaking of Cone. I put together a denim vest modeled off of my Lofgren vests. I changed up a couple things, mainly I put a busted seam down the back to show off a little selvedge action.

I got the denim from Premium Denim Outlet, which sells some really nice Cone denim for really cheap. They also carry shrink to fit denim from Cone, which is really hard to come by these days. This denim is unsanforized.

Chest pocket. A little pleating.

Selvedge accents on inside of chest pocket.

Front left belly pocket

Selvedge accent inside the belly pockets.

busted seam down the back

Large Chest pocket that I lines with canvas around the opening

And the fit:

[beautiful_FrEaK]

great vest!

didn't notice that you made them yourself the first time I saw them. really beautiful craftmanship! (outta rep though)

[Happy Hooligan]

great job on the vest! I've a few yards from them myself...

[entertainment!]

Watch out rnr, Levi's is going to sue you over those pocket arcuates.

That looks great.

BTW, future rnr got drunk and traded it for a bottle of soco, so enjoy it while you have it.

[morse9443]

It's unreal the quality considering he isn't even a pro. How much sewing have you been up to switch? The stitching on the detail shots looks perfect.

[Mich]

That vest looks great!

I own the Lofgren vest too, one of my favourites.

[erk]

you guys got any new photos or some cool stuff to share on the trendiest thread on superfuture?

thought maybe I'd post some:

LVC1955 loom chatter

1937 501 ( can't remember if I already posted this...)

1915 501

cone looks good at all stages of wear...unlike some you'd compare...

[entertainment!]

^That's just beautiful.

[Vinneus]

might unbrand my lvc's and just have a pair of "CONES!"

[erk]

might unbrand my lvc's and just have a pair of "CONES!"

oh come now, you don't wanna do that...

the branding looks so good on the 55s, not to mention one of the cool parts about LVC is watching all the branding break down and change.

[rnrswitch]

Hype Hype Hype!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vinneus]

stiring thangs up is all!

[rnrswitch]

Starting to break in really nicely

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By the way. What jacket is this? Is this the 1967?

[corporalclegg]

Its an Ande Whall sample jacket he made out of 15oz white oak.