Tender Co. Denim

[Cucoo]

Don't buy pre-shat jeans, shit your pants yourself

[jason995511]

Hey William, I’ve been noticing some new items pop up in stores. They look really beautiful! Any way you can post close ups of the materials, especially the cotton lawn. I’d love to see them. Congrats on another beautiful season. 

[Nei.Nor]

Yes some interesting new jeans varieties and some new shirts have been popping up on Instagram  really like the new shirt fabrics.

[Niro]

6 hours ago, Nei.Nor said:

Yes some interesting new jeans varieties and some new shirts have been popping up on Instagram  really like the new shirt fabrics.

what is their instragram? Or is it posted by their retailers pages?

[oomslokop]

tender doesn't have ig account. but you can now follow hashtags on ig, so just follow #tenderco

[rodeo bill]

On 27/01/2018 at 4:55 PM, jason995511 said:

Hey William, I’ve been noticing some new items pop up in stores. They look really beautiful! Any way you can post close ups of the materials, especially the cotton lawn. I’d love to see them. Congrats on another beautiful season. 

Thanks Jason, and all :-)

Sorry it's taken a little while longer than I hoped to get things up here- this is my absolutely busiest time of the year, and it's around now that I feel like I understand why people have sales, marketing, accounts, production, i.t., distribution staff rather than trying to do everything themselves! Not to mention instagram...

Still, things are now coming together nicely, and as you say Spring/Summer production is starting to appear in shops. I've also just put up quite a few new styles (along with some new functionality) on Tender Stores. I probably always think/say this, but I really think this production is my favourite yet- the fabrics came out beautifully and I'm very pleased with the new shapes and garment details.

Here are loads of photos, by great friend of the brand and long-time collaborator Rory Cole. Some things are available now, the rest will arrive over the next few weeks through February and March.

The blurry images were taken with a pinhole camera.

 

Fabric closeups and garment details to follow, I promise!

[rodeo bill]

Here are some closeups of fabrics, as requested:

this is plain cotton lawn, dyed with fawn logwood. It's a very fine unbleached yarn, packed quite tight so that it's a bit more substantial from previous seasons' crock cloth and bank note cambric.

the indigo pick stripe version of this fabric is quite special. It's the same base fabric, but with stripes of individual single 'picks' of indigo yarn. ('Ends' of yarn are individual warp yarns, and picks are individual weft yarns). The indigo yarn is much bulkier and slubbier than the lawn yarn, so it stands out texturally as well as in the colour. The indigo will gradually bleed out into the lawn around it and then fade entirely:

here's the same cloth, dyed with verdigris. This also shows the herringbone tape on the fronts of the tesseract shirts:

Wave calico is based on the same warp and yarn count as the regular plain calico, but it's lifted and dropped to to form a wave pattern. It's less obvious at loom state, but it really pops up when the fabric is washed or dyed:

rinsed above, and dyed fawn logwood below:

finally here's some new 10oz Cross Weave denim. I'm really excited about this one. It's woven in England, using Japanese ringspun and rope-dyed indigo yarn. It's woven on the same calico warp as the wave calico, with an indigo weft. Denim is normally woven the opposite way to this, with an indigo warp and an ecru weft. Theoretically you end up with the same thing, if you just rotate the fabric 90 degrees, but in fact it's not quite: you have to push lots of picks (weft yarn) into the warp to darken it up enough to read like denim, and this gives it a really interesting three-dimensional ribbed quality. This took a lot of development work, and there'll be more of this fabric coming up, I'm really happy with it, and looking forward to seeing it wear in:

[Paul T]

Some lovely fabrics there, especially the cross weave denim. Great to see.

[lance]

Cross weave denim, wonderful innovation, rodeo bill and thanks for the full story. 

[Niro]

First molleton denim and now this. Great stuff! Looking forward to seeing more of the cross weave

[JDelage]

Love the cross weave denim. Looking forward to more pics, maybe with less artistic blurr...

[CAL415]

I’m really looking forward to SS18. Any US shops going to carry this season’s jackets/shirts? 

[rodeo bill]

thanks all! Yes, in the US Black Blue in St Paul MN, Mill (part of Unionmade) in SF, Mutiny in Hudson NY, New High Mart in LA, and Old North in Asheville NC will all be getting stock. Also Lost & Found in Toronto and Neighbour in Vancouver. I'll be sending out first deliveries over the next week or so, so please keep a look out.

[rodeo bill]

Very excitingly, Journal Standard (great chain in Japan) placed a big order for Whooper at the end of last year, and it's just been delivered into their stores. Here are some photos:

[jason995511]

Thank you for all the great photos William. These season does look great. I look forward to hopefully getting many pieces.

I just saw the TYPE 007 LIGHTWEIGHT LOGWOOD FLOAT STITCH ANKLE SOCKS, can you tell us a little about these?

You know I love those socks!  Especially happy to see more ankle ones again.

[Hendsch]

Current state of my Wattle 129s:

[rodeo bill]

On 06/02/2018 at 8:47 PM, jason995511 said:

Thank you for all the great photos William. These season does look great. I look forward to hopefully getting many pieces.

I just saw the TYPE 007 LIGHTWEIGHT LOGWOOD FLOAT STITCH ANKLE SOCKS, can you tell us a little about these?

You know I love those socks!  Especially happy to see more ankle ones again.

Thank you Jason! I'm delighted you like the look of everything, and I'm so sorry it's taken such a long time to respond.

The new socks are my first try at doing lightweight socks (all Tender socks to date have been relatively heavy). They're knit quite narrow, but they stretch very nicely for a comfortable fit which is nice in warmer weather. They're knitted with 'float' stitch, which means that a second layer of yarn floats over the main plain stitch, giving them some substance and depth without making them much heavier than a fine-gauge plain knit. As you say, they come calf- or ankle-height, and you can get them finished with the float stitch inside (as intended with this kind of knit) or reversed on the outside, which shows off the texture of the float sitches. Here are some closeups.

fawn logwood dyed ankle socks, revere float stitch- you can see the little loops on the outside on the sock: 

left-right: verdigris or fawn logwood-dyed, and raw unborn ecru cotton which will shrink to fit with the first wash. These socks are all made up right-side-out, and you cans ee the more regular, tighter stitch shows on the outside. The unborn version looks looser than the dyed socks, as the yarn hasn't yet shrunk and tightened up during washing.

On 17/02/2018 at 11:42 PM, Hendsch said:

Current state of my Wattle 129s:

 

^ I'd love to see these! Any change you could re-upload?

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by rodeo bill

[rodeo bill]

in other news, this was published last year, but I only just got a copy. Tender's in the first edition of Code's Book of Denim. There's some great photography and writing, and it's a pleasure to be involved.

Here's the piece about Tender, patched together from a full preview here

[oomslokop]

@rodeo bill, those beautiful socks are not on the stores/trestle shop yet, am i correct?

Edited February 22, 2018 by oomslokop

[rodeo bill]

^thanks, sorry yes I'll get some stock up asap! in the mean time you can find some at Oi Polloi and Superdenim

Edited February 22, 2018 by rodeo bill

[rodeo bill]

^further to that, I've just been sorting out stock, I don't actually have stock to go online, so they'll all be with stockists. Please let me know if you need more information, although the above are a good place to start.

In other news, a loyal customer and dear friend of the brand, Kirk, has sent over some great photos of his latest pieces, taken in Kauai. Shared with permission and many thanks!

Type 418 shortsleeve pullover shirt in fawn logwood-dyed wave calico, gin clear slimmer flat top sunglasses:

Type 484 short-sleeved tesseract shirt, rinsed indigo pick-stripe cotton lawn:

Type 921 edited tail jacket, rinsed linen insulating twill, clear glass mouth-blown tumbler

 

and some more great images of the same things!

[rodeo bill]

Speaking of new season shirts, I promised more details soon- here are some diagrams showing the design and construction of the two new basic styles:

[julian-wolf]

Still working on convincing myself to put in an order for a supplement to my next couple years' worth of socks…

Are the actual feet of the striped mohair / cotton socks made up of mohair, or cotton? The aesthetic of the striping is really lovely, but I don't like wearing cotton on my feet themselves (don't mind it for my ankles, of course).

Edited March 2, 2018 by julian-wolf

[rodeo bill]

^I'm afraid the feet are cotton, with mohair stripes up the ankle/calf. That said, they're full terry stitch over the feet, like a loop-back sweatshirt, so they're very comfy and substantial, while still being nice and soft. I hope this helps! 

[julian-wolf]

Thanks for the info! Looks like those'll be a no-go for me, but that still leaves plenty of other options. The dollar's stronger than it's been against the pound for a month and change; I'm going to take that as a sign (however feeble) that it's finally time to click order.

[rodeo bill]

thank you! Your socks will go out shortly- you've made a really nice selection 

[rodeo bill]

here's another photo from Kirk, this time two special Stores pieces- a 420 tail shirt made from Irish-woven check using deadstock 60s cotton yarn, with 132s cut from English-woven deckchair canvas:

[rodeo bill]

some pictures in today from Andy, the owner of the excellent Always In Colour, in Exeter. These are of his Type 944 folded morning coat, in Prussian blue dyed wool-cotton awning stripe, taken on Dartmoor:

[julian-wolf]

Four pairs of socks came in the mail yesterday, and they're just what I was hoping for! The weight + feel of the cotton / wool pair, in particular, is really great.

I have a question about how these may react to hot water. Two of the pairs I decided on (one mohair and one alpaca) are undyed, and I'm hoping to dye one or both pairs (partly to be able to tell them apart, but mostly just for a fun project). I have some minimal experience using natural dyes, but mostly with silks, for which I haven't had to worry about matting or felting or any of that. Are there any extra precautions that can be taken when dyeing these to prevent bad outcomes? Or would you recommend avoiding it completely for the sake of the socks, given that I'm not very experienced? I'm not too worried about splotchy coloration or any of that since I'm the only one who will ever really see them, but I do want to make sure I don't damage the fibers.

[CAL415]

William, I really like the butterfly jackets you’re wearing above - particularly the ecru one. It’s nice that it’s more cropped than typical Tender stuff. Do you know where I can pick one of these up here in the states?