Lee Loves (Loved?) Uganda

[dkatz]

I stumbled across some project Lee Japan apparently did with a Japanese NGO called Hunger Free World (the name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't say I know any of their specific projects here) which somehow involved A) denim and Uganda.

Given that I am A) a denim-nerd and living in Uganda, I am duly intrigued.

Anyone know anything about it? All I could find was this website:

http://www.crownjewel.co.jp/other.command?url=/special/lee-uganda/index.html

in Japanese. From the pictures and few English words, my sense is that some NGO was involved in (hopefully fair-trade) organic cotton production and Lee hooked up with them to produce jeans from the cotton. Looks like they were released one time in October of 2008.

I also came across some pictures which (also) intrigue me:

Hah! I live riiiiight there. Between those two stitches straight down from the first leg of the "N" in "UGANDA"

Looks like they're maybe a one-wash?

BEST PART! Selvage to match the Ugandan flag!

An internal hip-pocket. Interesting. Good for avoiding pick-pockets? Until you have to get your money out... which requires taking your pants off.

Africa. Sooooo hot right now. (pun intended. It's seriously been damn hot the past days)

Not the raddest jeans I've ever seen, but given the remarkable conflation of two pretty central features in my life... awesome!

Anyone know anything about this?

[sixsixtie]

Those are pretty cool imo.

[fardin]

nice post dkatz. i have read about their project on the lee japan homepage but could not find out much either. i posted the link back last year. there are some nice models. i wonder hoe the sustainability of that project is?

since you know more about uganda what do you think, are they made as a fair trade product?

here is a link to the NGOs homepage, and their uganda projects

http://www.hungerfree.net/english/pjug.html

[fardin]

plus here is the link to the lee site with the uganda project pants

http://edwin-ec.jp/disp/CSfDispListPage_001.jsp?q=&dispNo=001001&sort=&type=&rowPerPage=&ff=goods_series_search_cd&fv=2108&brandCd=201&cateCd=

[dubcbadass]

+rep if i could, way cool. also, i was just reading/appending the EDC thread in culture and an internal hip pocket might be the ticket for some of the better prepared EDCers that need some more space for killing instruments, etc.

[skizz]

I like how the selvedge line matches the flag

The Japanese on the tag on yours says "sample", so it looks like they aren't quite the same as the ones on the Edwin site.

Is there anything special on the leather patch on the back left pocket?

edit: oops, bad reading comprehension on my part. I thought that you had already purchased a pair and that these were your pictures.

[fardin]

internal hip pocket for killing instruments in a thread about helping people

fight hunger? maybe i am naive

[dkatz]

What is the "EDC" thread?

Fardin- I took a quick look through the NGO's page and didn't see much I was familiar with. It looks like most recently they're working with rice farmers in Wakiso district (which is pretty near to Kampala), but I really don't know anything about 'em. Thanks for the link to the sale page though!

It seems like these: http://edwin-ec.jp/disp/CSfGoodsPage_001.jsp?GOODS_NO=35765&q=&brandCd=201&cateCd=&dispNo=001001&sort=&type=&rowPerPage=

are probably the end result of those sample photos I put up. Can anybody translate a bit? Google translate ain't doing the trick.

Also, I dig these chinos:

http://edwin-ec.jp/disp/CSfGoodsPage_001.jsp?GOODS_NO=35771&q=&brandCd=201&cateCd=&dispNo=001001&sort=&type=&rowPerPage=

if anyone's really in the mood for translation...?

Okay, honesty-time, I lifted the photos in my first post from this ebay auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/SAMPLE-LEE-UGANDA-SELVAGE-JEANS-M-101-501-32-JAPAN-505_W0QQitemZ220548263383QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_CSA_MC_Jeans?hash=item3359b36dd7

I didn't want to post the link initially in case I wanted to buy them, but I have no business doing that.

[fardin]

dkatz i am not sure if they are a sample, although it says so. i remmeber seeing them last year on the lee japan page. they also had another very ncie pant in the style of the boss of the road dungarees, i have posted it somewhere in this thread i guess, like a year ago. still very nice pants.

it seems like EDC is "Every Day Carry"item, like a knife of other samll stuff one can need. i was referring to the killing instruments, but maybe i misunderstood it.

here is a link to the tread

http://www.superfuture.com/supertalk/showthread.php?t=172330