Spring 2009 Heritage Denims

Every year, we call the latest iteration of our Deluxe jeans “The Finest Jeans Ever Made”. While we often make bold statements, we challenge you to find a better pair of jeans. While other companies copy the details we brought back to the denim industry (like two tone stitching or the use of selvage): we never stop striving to make our denim the best. Last year some of our jeans featured leather rivet washers, natural indigo, silk & supima cotton blended denim, and bluff seams.

The importance of craftsmanship within Japan’s culture is astonishing. The utmost quality is strived for and achieved through a painstaking attention to detail. We want our garments to ultimately reflect this ethos: so we work closely with our Japanese mills to realize our vision.

This year, we’re releasing 5 new Heritage denims – each with their own unique set of characteristics and details. Staying true to traditional Japanese denim-dyeing methods and a vintage sensibility, our Spring 09 denim will feature red-caste denim; while our Fall 09 collection will feature primarily green-cast denim. Each classification of denim is indicated by a stamped number (No.1, No.2, etc.) on the leather patches; instead of mentioning our internal fabric codes like we did in the past; such as D85.

First up, we’ve relaunched our core No1Special and No2 denims. The Japanese selvage cloth is identical in both styles but while No2 has been preshrunk, No1Special is unsanforized, meaning that it will shrink down 2 inches in the waist after a wash – causing the fabric to become much tighter and forming a true vintage ‘leg twist’. We’ve also reintroduced a Left-Hand Twill denim (No13Left) to commemorate the famous Lee left hand twill jeans. Next, No3 denim is our classic D85 ‘Rising-Sun’ selvage renamed, which is woven from unbleached ‘mother cotton’ – giving it a brownish red shade in the weft and a deep blue-black tone in the semi-slub, rope dyed warp. In one case (No4), we’re using an open-yarn denim, instead of the ringspun yarn we use in all our other denim, which wears differently and has an interesting ‘spotty’ fading pattern, after a few months. Finally, in Autumn/Winter 2009 we’ll also be debuting an exotic, sulphur rope-dyed ringspun black selvage denim, No2Black. So many choices and only one pair of legs.

All our fabrics are custom-made to our exact specifications, so you won’t see them from another company. Thankfully our mills share our maniacal vision!

Since we want to educate aspiring ‘denim-heads’ and seasoned vets alike about our new denim designations, we’ve attached cloth information labels (removable of course) to our leather patches. We hope you enjoy the new Heritage denim as much as we do.