Evisu is still loved!

[heyson]

Do y’all know if there are a lot of fakes floating around? I found a pair on eBay but idk how to verify. They look okay to me. I’ll add some pics here soon

[beautiful_FrEaK]

Evisu is faked a lot. But usually the more gaudy pairs.

[heyson]

this is the pair in question

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I'd say it looks authentic based on the few pics.

[Maynard Friedman]

They look fine to me, although I’ve never had a pair of Evis/u.

[heyson]

@beautiful_FrEaK and @Maynard Friedman thank you for your input. I’ve always wanted evisu, but honestly I have way too many jeans. Still very tempted. Also, I also wanted the tiger selvedge. Here’s a few more pics. Idk if this is helpful

[beautiful_FrEaK]

IMO they are genuine. But no Tiger Selvedge 😅

[yung_flynn]

In case anyone is interested, I stumbled across what seems to be a very good condition for a pretty good price for a pair of size 33 2101 Leepros 

https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/auction/yahoo/input/h1104414259/

[rodeo bill]

^ I remember seeing a pair of these where the pocket patch stitching had come undone. From the outside it's blank rough-out leather, but underneath it was a standard Evisu Godhead patch, turned over and cut in half! I liked the make-do attitude. Lovely jeans, in any case

[Graytrain]

Been searching a long time for this one:

 

Evis era bull patch S506xx (1506).

From comparison with other era pairs of jeans, it looks like No.2 denim. Lovely boxy, short silhouette. And slightly different than the norm, zinc-y laurel buttons. 

 

 

 

Don't think I can save this

 

interesting construction tidbits:

Single stitch cuff:

[chicote]

@Graytrain you are on your way to becoming a legendary collector of early Japanese repro denim! i really admire your taste and persistence in acquiring such rare & old pieces.

[Graytrain]

Thanks @chicote! I have never seen myself as a collector. Wholly a wearer. And for most of my denim career (nearing 20 years...) I've been dedicated to a pair at a time. Channelling my inner Ryu "Using chain stitch, your train of jeans is fading wind." But the chase of the grail that captures a specific fit, detail and character has made me really fall in love with the history of repros and particularly the Osaka 5. I realized through that, that there is very little info out there save whats in this forum, that its all going to become lost information at some point, and the only way to experience the older historical repros is to source it and see it first hand. And by total happenstance, I have become a collector...

[beautiful_FrEaK]

14 hours ago, Graytrain said:

I realized through that, that there is very little info out there save whats in this forum, that its all going to become lost information at some point, and the only way to experience the older historical repros is to source it and see it first hand.

I know this feeling all too well. Inernet wasn't a thing when the Osaka5 released their early stuff. And even if it would have, it would be gone anyway. So you need old magazines.
Also many of the old Japanese blogs are deleted making it harder to get info.

And I have the feeling the brands weren't as transparent back then. Nowaydays you get much more info about the denim and the design.

So once "we" are gone and don't care anymore, who will?
 

[Graytrain]

10 hours ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

I know this feeling all too well. Inernet wasn't a thing when the Osaka5 released their early stuff. And even if it would have, it would be gone anyway. So you need old magazines.
Also many of the old Japanese blogs are deleted making it harder to get info.

And I have the feeling the brands weren't as transparent back then. Nowaydays you get much more info about the denim and the design.

So once "we" are gone and don't care anymore, who will?
 

The community of people that care about repros will continue to dwindle to the point where there won't be a big enough market to justify making the clothing. And with it will die the entire story of how it all came to be. 

It's a bit heart breaking really. 

I hope someone is or will document the history of the Osaka 5 and the rise of Japanese denim. 

 

As for the stuff we get nowadays and why I'm less interested. I feel as though with social media came a feedback mechanism that took a bit of personality out of the garments. They feel "made for someone" instead of made for their own appreciation.

In many ways this is amazing. We get items that couldn't exist before and justified a market for very niche products. 

But before that, the world was smaller. The older repros might not have CSF-level attention to detail, but they have a spirit to them that speaks of individuals making something for themselves without caring to make others happy. It's feels pure and true. They come imbued with something that makes them different than a blank canvas. 

And to me, wearing *that* feels worlds different than wearing a new release. 

[Maynard Friedman]

I’m completely with you here @Graytrain, the last jeans that I bought as a current release/production model was back in 2018 (LVC 1976). Since 2011, most pairs I’ve bought were deadstock/out of production pairs or have subsequently become that. I’m not interested in new releases, although I still see pairs I like, but part of that is due to the fact I have too many jeans anyway, so I try hard to resist any new purchases.

[Dr_Heech]

@Graytrain love the central position of the single pocket, right in the centre of the wearer's left front panel. Perfect. 

[Graytrain]

11 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

@Graytrain love the central position of the single pocket, right in the centre of the wearer's left front panel. Perfect. 

It is. Being that I wear S506s exclusively, the chest pocket has become a habitual stashing location and "below-tit" is so much better esthetically and functionally.

[Dr_Heech]

'Below-tit' should be a standard measurement in our denim related world 😅

[Maynard Friedman]

1 minute ago, Dr_Heech said:

'Below-tit' should be a standard measurement in our denim related world 😅

I’m not sure how standard it would be as the position of male tits is a moobable feast

[Graytrain]

23 hours ago, Graytrain said:

Been searching a long time for this one:

 

Evis era bull patch S506xx (1506).

And the fit, paired with the early Evis 2501xx with arcs

 

 

[beautiful_FrEaK]

21 hours ago, Graytrain said:

The community of people that care about repros will continue to dwindle to the point where there won't be a big enough market to justify making the clothing.

My only hope: as long as people are interested in the original (read vintage Levi's 501s) there will be a certain demand for repro jeans.

[yung_flynn]

Some of the conversation here feels in the spirit of some of the philosophical thoughts (both clothing/style and otherwise) that I've been thinking about during late nights with my son. Here is my screed.

There are all sorts of different reasons that lead people to choose the items that they wear. They may dress a certain way due to economics, aesthetics, to generate "likes", to blend in, to stand out,  to convey affinity or membership in a particular subculture, because they just enjoy wearing particular items for the sake of it, etc. Obviously, these reasons are not all mutually exclusive. In the image and click based world of today, arguably certain reasons are privileged more than others. In an Instagram fit pic, a pair of vintage Evis Lot 2501 No. 1 (as an example pertinent to this thread) will be more or less indistinguishable from a pair of modern day Levis or mall brand jeans and would generate no more likes or hype, as opposed to say the Oni Asphalt fabric. In the real world though, their is an intangible element to those Evis that can only be experienced through love and wear - the tactile experience of the fabric, the history, the passion, dedication, and craftsmanship of the creator.

This goes beyond clothing as well, at least it does for me. It's similar to the reason why I collect vintage pulp hardboiled and sci-fi paperbacks rather than the modern day reissues of those titles. I just love the vintage Robert McGinnis cover art as opposed to the more soulless covers of today. It's the reason why I'm going to start getting into film photography (at least occasionally) with an old Nikon SLR and an old Leica rangefinder. Sure I can probably create more technically perfect images with my Fuji mirrorless camera and Lightroom, but then I lose some of the tactile joy and craft of the analog experience. Rather than spamming 100s of shots for the perfect image, I have to be much more deliberate in my choices. Even in my professional area of science (chemistry,chemical engineering/soft matter physics), there was a sense of discovery, wonder, and careful details present in older literature than in contemporary literature. These older works often did science for the sake of fundamental discovery and carefully crafted experiments and shared the results in a more sober matter-of-fact manner. I never learned as much as I did from literature from the mid-90s and earlier. Today, as in denim, a lot of the work fixates more on the final product than the journey. Large portions of academic research focus more on device fabrication and subsequent commodification in search of an easy start-up spinoff or payday at the expense of fundamental research. I don't blame them since such hype generation drives a lot of the funding decisions, at least in the US, but this reality is ultimately what led me away from academic roles/professorships and is partly why I'm now an industrial scientist.

To  conclude and as a slight aside, some of the discussion here is ultimately what led me to purchase the TCB no. 2. The jeans are clearly polarizing in aesthetic as evidence by the contest thread here. They were most definitely not designed to generate 100 fit pic posts on Reddit. Rather, they exist because Inoue-san clearly loves the history of the denim and cared deeply about maklng those jeans for their own sake. Are they a pair that I would pick in a vacuum - no. However, I too appreciate the attention to detail and wanted to do my smallest part to ensure that the passion and craft can live on a little longer

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

To offer somewhat of a different perspective here that has little to do with old repros per se, nostalgia is a powerful drug. The search for “authenticity” is often a search for feelings one had as a youth, when everything was more exciting because one was young and because there is a sense of discovery at that age that there won’t be when you’ve lived longer, and seen more. It’s not to say that the pursuit of nostalgia is problematic, but one will simply never recreate the feelings of that age. It is a chapter in life. Now we are in a new chapter. 

There are plenty of brands here that I would contend exude the passion some probably found in the original Osaka 5 works. And maybe young people finding them today will have the same feelings about them twenty years from now. Tender, Freewheelers, and Ooe, (and TCB as noted) for example - all know how to do IG , yes, but they also clearly and patently make what they love and it shows in the clothes - those of us that have them probably appreciate them largely for this reason. There are things from the past worth holding on to, but we can’t completely. I also don’t mean to take anything away from collecting older models - if that’s your jam, by all means. It’s fun to go searching and find a treasure, absolutely. It just doesn’t mean that there isn’t something out right now that lacks that same magic. These are just perceptions. 

I use Leica digital Monochromes for my work. I use them because damn are the files so much better than a 35mm negative, and they make pictures possible that weren’t before. I’m stubborn and want the camera to feel like the sort I used for years, but that’s the irrational part of me. They are an objective improvement compared to the negatives you’d get from tri-x run through an analog M, and the prints (that I do digitally) have their own unique and beautiful presence that a silver print differs from (not better or worse).

But, I came up shooting film for a good while, I shot it for work when I had the budget, had to turn around that shit on deadline for magazines stubbornly when digital was in full force already because 10 years ago medium format film still had a very demonstrable advantage - as of about the 36 and 40 mp sensors in the D800 series or the Sony A7R series, it was gone. And I was happy to let it go. I still have my Rolleiflexes and M6, beautiful mechanical objects but they sit in a case because as photographic tools they’re not as good for most purposes. (Some specific purposes - I’ll never tell someone what they need - I’m sure can be found).

If one enjoys the process more, that’s great. Enjoying the process is the most important part of making things, most of the time. But careful not to hold an idea that it’s somehow something more real or pure because it’s older or slower etc. And there’s nothing that stops one from being deliberate on a digital camera. I get that the roll of film presents a hard limit on things, but there’s nothing stopping one from just shooting a few deliberately made pictures even if you can make 1000.  

Yes, we are awash in more plastic and more fakery and more advertising than ever, and it can make the good stuff hard to find, but it’s more out there than ever. Maybe this is because I work in the arts but there is great new work being made now, all of the time, and the idea of “the good old days” is a mirage that will never materialize because the way it exists in one’s head now is different than it was even then.

Realizing this probably belongs in the “nonsense” thread - mods feel free to move, or delete even if this is too insufferable ha. 

Edited June 14 by AlientoyWorkmachine

[Graytrain]

23 minutes ago, AlientoyWorkmachine said:

These are just perceptions. 

Your perception is the only truth. It is what informs your experience, and shapes tomorrow's truth in the light of new perception. Magic and meaning is everywhere, in everything, but it is entirely unique to the observer. We (as a collective humanity) often put to much external value on that truth, particularly when a collection of individuals experience the same truth, and thus try to enforce it upon others as a universal truth to shape their perception.

Please forgive the philosophy, feel free to ignore it as well. Its my perception anyways, which doesn't mean its true.  

[cheapmuthafukr]

Diacock is still loved

[bartlebyyphonics]

nyuk-nyuk: yes to the daicock @cheapmuthafukr!!!

yes yes yes 4verar to @Graytrain cool collections...

and for discussions on authenticity; evis/u made/make great jeans but it must be remembered that yamane-san is true/supreme hype man as much as crafts-man...

and yes, as per the thread; I still pledge allegiance: I still love evisu very very much!

[mousemouse]

Has anyone here had experience with the Yamane industries brand? Would the no.0, 1 and 2 denim be the same as the evisu fabrics. The cuts look similar

https://yamane.industries/products/lot-1990-no-0-regular-straight-fit-jeans-raw-and-rigid

 

[beautiful_FrEaK]

So...

Yamane Art is from Hidehiko Yamane (father) and Yamane Industries is from his son?

[JohnM]

The discussion above reminds me of why I stick with this hobby -- it's you.  Yes, I started out close to 20 years ago looking for a pair of jeans to replace my $39 Levi's 550s bought at Sears.  I really didn't care that they had poly stitching or were made in Malaysia.  They were just too big and wide.  So I took them to the Levi's store in San Francisco and found a wonderful seamstress (Melissa Vu) working in the LVC Dept (long gone).  She altered them and they fit perfectly -- I still have them and, truth be told, they fit better than a lot of the jeans I've bought since.  And the denim is great too, with a weight and texture that is oddly hard to find (a topic for another discussion).

Anyway, I have a few hobbies and what keeps me in them is the people (i.e., not just those who make the product but those who appreciate it).  The average person could give a damn beyond, 'Do these jeans look good on me, does my butt look too big?'.  The kind of people who care about stitching and rivets are the same people who appreciate what makes a Leica lens special (new or old), or a tube amp sound sweet and liquid, etc.

[lee porter]

Yes I have a old evisus no1 new yaman labour and yaman industry and it’s all the same denim will take photos and post when I get time