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Tender Co. Denim


braille_teeth

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/11/2017 at 5:49 AM, rodeo bill said:

^this is such a great shot, I always really like your photos- thank you!

While various Tender stuff percolates, here are a few more details about THEN, which has been mentioned briefly a couple of times. It's a very small project, but which I feel really good about- it's been quite a bit of work but is very personal. I came across a fantastic archive of mid-20th Century fabric designs, which were lovely in their own right, but also really strongly reminded me of my grandparents and great-aunt, who were designers working from the 1940s to the 80s. The idea was to take these fabrics (reworked a bit), and cut them into the kind of clothes which people like my grandparents wore. While the work they did was pretty avant garde, the clothes they wore themselves were very simple and tasteful, almost conservative.

Fabrics got woven up in the UK, and the garments are made to a very precise, tailored, level, in Japan. Bone china swingtags are an homage to Barbara Hepworth, and are made in England. Here are a few photos:

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As I said, this is a personal side project, so it may not be every season, but it should keep popping up one way or another. The first production is now available at PRESENT, as well as Maidens in Tokyo and Loftman in Kyoto. The name, THEN, is partly about the idea of time (a previous era, but also a link to the future, the next step), and also a reference to a great book of photographs by Alexander Liberman, who was a friend of my grandfathers (I believe).

Apologies that this may not be for everyone, back to regular scheduled programming soon :)

wanna cop em all. btw, I have the Liberman biography and my publishing imprint is fairly inspired by VU.

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^Thanks, great to know someone else knows his work :)

Sorry to have posted so little over the last couple of weeks- this is my busiest time of year. If anyone will be in Nagoya this weekend Akira and I will be doing a trunk show at Diaries. I'll be there on Saturday, and it should be fun! Sounds like quite a few people will be visiting, so I'll be sure to post pictures after I get back. More details here

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2 hours ago, longshanks said:

Does any one know if the sizing for jeans is consistent through different dying methods? Or would the dyed denim generally run smaller than the undyed denim?

Thanks for this. All the denim jeans are cut the same size, from the same unsanforized fabric- you either then buy them Unborn (raw) in which case they'll shrink down to tag with the first wash/soak, or they come rinsed or dyed, which shrinks them to size before you receive them. There's some variation in dyeing temperature which affects the initial shrinkage (as a general rule woad and rinsed denim will arrive shrunk a bit less i.e. a bit larger than other dyes) but this will balance out with further washing, and with stretch from wear. After a little while of wearing them and a couple of washes all versions will end up fitting the same, so if you know a Type and size fit in one version you can buy the same size in another. I hope this makes sense.

The only exception to this is jeans made from other fabrics (canvas, wool-cotton herringbone, etc), which may fit slightly differently to the denim versions- please mail me if you have any questions about these.

 

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^sorry again that I've not been able to help with this.

In the meantime here's a couple of photos of some nice little whisky cups at GOOD FISHING, made for Blue-09:

Good_Fishing_Blue-09_Ceramic_Whiskey_Cup_Made_in_England_by_Tender_Co_V2_3.thumb.jpg.281bdb9d12ae52f0b79663c9a74e3891.jpgGood_Fishing_Blue-09_Ceramic_Whiskey_Cup_Made_in_England_by_Tender_Co_V2_2.thumb.jpg.6f2a4a26ce1734bf94ae90113ec13d10.jpg

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They're based on the shape of some small whisky tumblers that I made a few years ago for Kings County Distillery, from glass, but hand thrown from white clay, and slipped in stripes to match the B-09 logo. I have one for myself and it's a really satisfying shape to sip from!

Blue-09 is being set up by my good friends Vicken (ex-The Hill Side) and Samuel (ex-Kings County Distillery). Their Bourbon and Moonshine is still in the distilling process, but should be ready early next year- I really trust these guys' judgment and taste, though, so I'm looking forward to it! In the meantime they're making some special products (starting with these cups) and running their parallel brand, GOOD FISHING, which has some really nice stuff in its own right.

More soon! I just arrived in Japan, so pics from the pop-up shop at DIARIES in the next few days :)

 

 

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^^thanks guys!

perhaps the coolest thing that's ever happened to me: a friend of the brand in an assistant to Beat Takeshi (amazing director & actor- Battle Royale was, some say, totally ripped off by the Hunger Games...)

Anyway apparently Mr Takeshi carries around a keyring which his assistant says looks like him!:

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Edited by rodeo bill
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^beautiful!

I'm saving a new pair from the next Tender production for myself, but in the meantime, my Whooper Backwoods are on loan to a shop in Tokyo (Whooper's really starting to gain a following, which I'm very excited about) so this morning I pulled on a new pair of Greyhounds. Here's the fit:IMG_6540.thumb.JPG.9c1b689cd5dd50b8e23b58360f462e9d.JPGIMG_6538.thumb.JPG.d834f8a50aa0bcbfeb01e727977a2020.JPGIMG_6539.thumb.JPG.f03cddb46a0bb4b9c6c20e778ca6053d.JPG

It's been a while since I've worn anything this slim, but it's a reminder to me that if they fit right slim jeans can be extremely comfy. I'm looking forward to wearing these in.

The Tshirt, by the way, is a Christopher Brown illustration. Chris was one of my tutors at CSM and did some prints for Tender a few years ago. This is a series I've helped to select and arrange- they've just been picked up by Beams, which is super exciting :)

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and then some details 

really love this denim and cut

and fit and finish

a nice simple almost brutal proportion with self lined pockets and rear end triple stitchings and nicely changing colour domed rivets

nice heft, and super rich indigo and great fade potential 

perfect autumn winter jean

remember seeing direct light on them once and the denim looked like oil slick with so many colours sitting in there

and these just plain old rinsed version

 

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Edited by bartlebyyphonics
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