Tender Co. Denim

[beatle]

I really don´t understand why you guys don´t have an online store...

[rodeo bill]

^^ thank you beatle!

re opening up online sales- you say 'you guys' but in fact it's just me... It'd be great to do a store at some point, but this is still only the second season and I'm not that experienced with websites, let alone running a webshop. The main thing though is I'd need to keep stock, and at the moment I just can;t afford it:o. On the other hand, I'm lucky to be selling to some truly excellent shops, and I think it's a really great way to build the brand in the right direction. This also allows me to spend my time concentrating on the product!

[stabliu]

You should do a version of the potato T with the tender face.carved into the potato, would look pretty cool imo

[beatle]

seconded....

[mtchfrnk]

I think that William's choice to use potatoes for this little part of Tender really "fits" with the feeling of the whole collection, in a couple of interesting ways. So I am going to share a few facts about potatoes.

First of all, I think that part of Tender Co's appeal is the sensation of finding beauty in unexpected places. Through Tender (and this thread), we've learned about many beautiful processes--green indigo oxidizing to blue; animal flesh turning into leather; "lost-wax" metalcasting...the list goes on. I was not expecting to see these amazing things here. Unexpected beauty!

To the same end, did you know that potato flowers are really pretty?

And that inside, potatoes have a beautiful, ghost-like vascular system?

I also like that Tender Co has an organic, "back-to-the-land" feeling--without being hippy-dippy or (as we say in the US) crunchy. Again, for example, the leathergoods--I think we are supposed to remember that the leather came from an animal.

The potato is such an earthy, primitive tool to use. Did you know that when potatoes first came to Europe from the New World, people thought they would grow into nasty little poisonous animals? (In the same superstitious way that they thought cotton came from "vegetable sheep," and that tomatoes were poisonous "devil apples.")

It is easy to see why--they grow legs!

And if you let a potato grow legs, it does in fact become poisonous. (Like many new-world veggies including tomatoes, chilies, and tobacco, it's in the "deadly nightshade" family). Some varieties even grow (very very) poisonous berries, which look like black cherry tomatoes:

And finally, I have learned a lot about vegetable dyes from this thread. I think it's a funny coincidence that Williams' indigo-dyed potato piece ends up looking like a blue potato:

These potatoes have a mutation which makes their cells produce anthocyanins, a common kind of plant-pigment which can look blue, purple, or red, depending on how acidic their environment is. Some of you may remember seeing a demonstration of this in grade school chemistry class: your teacher would have a jug of purple liquid (red cabbage juice) and he'd pour in some vinegar. It would suddenly, magically turn from purple to blue from the added acid. Red cabbages are also colored with anthocyanins.

On top of changing color, anthocyanins are very water-soluble, so they don't make good dyes. Southwestern native americans found a different way to obtain red and purple plant dyes: they would dry and grind up amaranth flowers. Hopi indians especially used amaranth to color their rugs and blankets. Amaranth is colored with a pigment called betalain, which is named after the beetroot. Anyone who has cooked with beets will recognize that beet juice is a VERY effective dye.

So as a way to tie all this together--I know that this has nothing to do with blue jeans. But one of the coolest things about Tender Co. is that it is about more than just the jeans. I think so anyways!

[stabliu]

Did you also know that rotten potatoes are one of the foulest smelling things on God's green Earth?

[Hovbold]

Hello Bill,

This really is an inspiration for me. Wowee, it looks like alot of hard work, but seems very much fun. Any tips, hints or tricks for a gentleman who shares your passion for keeping production and materials British?

[pepper davies]

After seeing your potato dyed shirts I was wondering if you ever considered doing a limited run of woad tie-died shirts, I'd pick one up.

[dawei69]

Hi bill, I totally understand the ease of just selling them to retail stores, but most of us dont have access to those stores... I dont think you need to keep a huge quantity of stock with each run... 20-30 pairs is plentiful...imo

and you can sell them directly via PM... Your Thread is a beast in terms of it's marketing

^^ thank you beatle!

re opening up online sales- you say 'you guys' but in fact it's just me... It'd be great to do a store at some point, but this is still only the second season and I'm not that experienced with websites, let alone running a webshop. The main thing though is I'd need to keep stock, and at the moment I just can;t afford it:o. On the other hand, I'm lucky to be selling to some truly excellent shops, and I think it's a really great way to build the brand in the right direction. This also allows me to spend my time concentrating on the product!

[Snake]

I absolutely love this jacket!

Denim is amazing. It has this deep indigo color with specks of turquoise. Under direct sunlight, the denim has this purple shade. The denim is very stiff right now but I am sure it will soften with wear. Even though it's 16oz denim, the jacket doesn't feel clumsy. The storm rider liner is thin and doesn't add bulk to the jacket. The denim also has this subtle sweet and almost floral smell to them. Anyways, some pics:

Close up

Fit pics

Fall can't come fast enough!

[-five-]

Really Nice Jacket Snake! They fit you very well too! Congrats!

[grooveholmes]

badass jacket. thanks for the fit pics/info!

[Snake]

Thanks guys. Bill did a fantastic job with the design.

Regarding sizing for those that asked, I have 40" chest and the denim jacket is size 2. I used superdenim.co.uk's sizing guide:

39/40 = 2

41/42 = 3

43/44 = 4

[grooveholmes]

todd barket of unionmade giving it up for the tender denim jacket in the latest GQ. Nice!

[rodeo bill]

^^ yup that was so nice of him- really exciting! the jacket's also made it into the current edition of selvedge magazine (a good one if people don't know it).

Sorry for the lack if updates recently- I've been doing mostly admin. I'll be off to see Natu next week and I'll try to put up some pics, then dyeing some more soon as well.

ps- Snake, the jacket and Tshirt look great on you- thank you very much!

[Val Kilmer]

Hey!

Is there a way to buy the woad tee somewhere online? I'm located in europe and could only find US sites that offer it.

Thanks!

[rubyblue]

For s/s probable at superdenim.co.uk and for sure at okiya.eu

Available end of december

[rodeo bill]

^^pm'd ya Val...

So like I said I went to visit Natu & Sarla this week, to pick up some jeans and jackets. These are for a couple of great shops who've taken on Tender in NYC and Berlin. I visited Natu a few weeks ago to run through all the details, so this was just to check through everything stitch by stitch, which took an hour or so:

inside and out...

and some jackets too

All I found was one missing rivet, which Natu quickly kicked-pressed on.

While I was checking everything Sarla popped home and brought us back a thali- lots of different vegetable dishes with chapathis and dhal

didn;t take photos I'm afraid- I was too hungry:rolleyes:

After lunch Natu and I got out a roll of my pocket lining (heavy selvage calico woven in Lancashire) and cut off the selvages. The pocket linings are all cut on the bias, so the edge isn;t used, and I need some selvage for some packaging I'm making (more to come on that later in the autumn...) The middle section stayed with Natu and he'll use it as before for the next load of pocket linings

Then I packed everything up into my suitcase, and it was off to visit Phil and Denise briefly for a cup of tea and a chat about Tshirts. On the way I took a walk down:

and home on the train to London:)

[Opie]

For s/s probable at superdenim.co.uk and for sure at okiya.eu

Available end of december

Thank you for that store.

[rodeo bill]

So that was Wednesday... Thursday morning I opened up my suitcase

and put everything in the bath to soak for 24 hours

then horribly early on Friday it was all into bin bags and back into suitcases to get the early train to Norfolk.

Ian had the indigo bath warmed up and ready to go

so after a cup of coffee I started getting the damp jackets and jeans opened out

[rodeo bill]

[jacob_davis]

Looking to buy a jacket . What size ? I'm a large in mister freedom 40 to 42 jacket depending on how it's cut . 3 or 4 ? I'm thinking three ,any thoughts?

[akka225]

how much are the jackets? $600?

[rodeo bill]

^^Yep I'd say size 3 sounds about right, Chest measurements are a lot bigger than you'd expect when the jacket's laid flat, but there's a 2" pleat in the back neck, and straps at the sides- all to give fullness and movement to the shoulders, so the chest measurement can be deceptive. great! thanks!

^yup that's the US price

Thought I'd put up a few more dyeing images from my trip the other week. My good friend and NYC penpal Mitch very kindly gave me an awesome pair of deadstock 60s(?) Roundhouse bib overalls, which I hope I've put to good use.

by the end of the day...

[jacob_davis]

thanks bill. just bought a size 3 from superdenim uk. can't wait!!! man i have a lot of denim. this piece seems pretty special thou. had to pull the trigger. love supporting cool people doing cool things. keep it up. it was cheaper than 600$ on superdenim even with the poor exchange rate.( pounds to usd) i will post a couple of pics when i get it.

[rodeo bill]

^^ wonderful! Thanks man. Hope you enjoy it.

While those jeans were oxodizing

here's some supersize pure woad indigo porn:

[mtchfrnk]

Thanks for posting the o'alls, William! I am so stoked on seeing them again in person. Probably will pick them up this weekend, and take more pictures of them then.

Someone somewhere should use that primordial indigotin soup to make really interesting arts...I'm picturing a phantasmagorical sculpture of gray mud clay mixed w/indigo, or a big installation of a tank filled with turpentine and indigo (the two phases would stay separate, but ripple beautifully when agitated, and the indigo would degrade over time), or maybe just some kind of painting. And the indigo would fade under gallery lighting!

PS. Attentive viewers will note the difference in shape and scale between Tender Co 132s and the slimmer cut for SS'11:

Nice comparison culled from William's lookbook by denimaniac blog.

[rodeo bill]

^^ nice fix, and thanks, but actually those are now both 130... (left weld dyed is one size up)

[jacob_davis]

i got lot no. 900 jacket yesterday. i love everything about the fit, color, details , hardware, etc. only thing is the sewing is a little sloppy. the cinch on one side looks to have been sewn again after the over dye. reason i think this is the stitches are white instead of that nice blue shade. also the over lap seam has come loose in the armpit already. i know this sixteen oz denim must be hard to sew.

here some pics.

white thread re do

blue thread

overlap seam came loose

i not trying to be to picky , i just paid a lot of money for this jacket. a little hard to return since i bought from the uk shipped to the us. i know its not going to effect the overall jacket. this jacket is already a beauty. i can only imagine how cool this jacket will look with a little wear.

[rodeo bill]

hi Jacob, I was going to pm you but I thought I might as well reply straight up here. First off thanks, and I'm very glad you're happy

Yes you're right the buckle on that jacket was restitched- I remember it. The bucke got crushed in the mangle before it was dyed and I only noticed it when I was packing them. I replaced the buckle, which meant undoing the strap. Rather than using blue-dyed thread to match on the shelf, but which wouldn;t wear, I used the same unbleached cotton thread as the rest of the sewing. After a little bit of wearing (and definitely after a wash), the indigo in the fabric will bleed over and make the difference much less noticable. Plus you can look at it as a unique feature and part of the stort of that particular jacket.

On the armhole again yes I see the place you mean, and very I'm sorry if you're at all disappointed. The armholes are cut quite high, which I think looks really nice. The problem with this is the curve of the panels is very tight, making it difficult to get the heavy rigid fabric around the machine. A lot of jeans jackets overlock and topsticth this armhole seam, but I don't like how this looks. The reason for having a triple fell-seam at the armhole is to secure against this being a problem. Even if the feed misses the edge of the seam at one stitch the remaining 2 will keep it completely safe. Again as you wear the jacket in and you start adding repairs etc this kind of thing will hopefully not seem an issue, and it certainly won;t be any less strong.

All of Tender's stuff is made on a very small level, and this is all still only from the first production, so there will be certain inconsistencies. I really hope that as you wear in your jacket these little things will become a part of the enjoyment of how unique each piece is. Hope that helps!