I find several things wrong with this whole childish concept.
Firstly:
As I mentioned in a previous post, Dungarees are in fact work pants. You really shouldn't be wearing them unless you plan on wrangling horses, digging ditches or going down a mine. That being said, to treat them as precious bit of high fashion is silly, and to pay fashion price is far worse. Certainly we all own them, wear them and love them, but we're talking about jeans, not a Gucci suit, for cripes sake.
Secondly:
Does anyone remember being a kid and having the same pair of jeans for years? I can remember playing in them, running in the dirt, really beating them up, and they didn't look half as bad as the one's in the link above. Maybe it's because my mother used to wash them, thereby alleviating the abrasive qualities of dirt.
Lastly:
Ask a woman, any woman, how cool she thinks it is when a guy wears pants that haven't been washed in a year. I'll wager you get a different response.
Call me a dork if you will, but I prefer clean clothes.
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8 comments:
I would like to believe that spic-and-span cleanliness is a basic component of TRAD-ness.
I like ACL's site, but I dont get the skanky looking denim thing. They want their jeans to look worn in certain areas? Too David Beckham for me. I always liked an overall fade.
Some of those jeans look like a young boy slid on his knees too much.
I read the ACL link and was aghast. Apart from the undesirable dermatological side-effects this can have, I can't see what the point is.
We used to add a little bleach in the wash to soften up the 501's and lighten them a bit (some 20-30 years ago). Some went a little too far, and the result was either disastrous or pretty cool in an adolescent way. Either way, you let time, and multiple washings give character to your jeans.
Guess, that a global economic meltdown is long overdue. That way people go back to improving themselves and looking the best they can with the little money they have. If prosperity lasted any longer, the folks in NYC would come up with cow manure as after-shave and call it shick sh** haute couture for that special evening.
I'm a big fan of ACL too, don't get me wrong. I just don't know where this strange belief came from that washing your jeans is undesirable. Google it some time, the amount af forums about it and crackpot ideas (put them in the drier with ice cubes and salt,etc.) is downright astounding. I say, wear them a couple of times, then put them in the washing machine with cold water, and hang them dry. Simple.I'm willing to bet that guys who do actually work in mines wash their jeans frequently.
I'm curious how you "sized up" your shrink-to-fit jeans and how much they actually shrink after an initial washing.
I just followed the guidelines on the tag attached to the jeans:
Waist up 1 inch, length up 3 inches.
One wash in cold water, hang dry, and the result was a perfect fit with no need to roll a cuff.
Just found the blog and going through the old posts. Wish the west coast had the quality in men's thrift stores that apparently the east coast does. Every time I have gone with my wife, it's a ton of 70s polyester and bad suits--more Halloween costume than anything.
Back to the topic--last year I purchased 3 raw denim jeans at Gap, $13.99 for 1 Japanese selvage denim, and $19.99 for the 2 others. I hand washed each individually in the sink and laid flat to dry on a beach towel. I wanted to preserve the dark, almost black, indigo color. It worked. I had to have 2 of the jeans hemmed to length, but washing first took care of any shrinking.
The jeans were still a little stiff, but broke in after a wearing or two. I would wash them the same way about every 3-4 weeks, wearing them about 3-5 times in between washes. After a year of owning, they still look nice and dark, the way I like.
I have started throwing the japanese denim one in the washing machine with the rest of the laundry, and it is breaking in beautifully. It lost some color in the wash, but not as much as I feared.
David
Armilyn and David,
Greta to have you aboard! I love to hear from new readers.
Try getting caught in a soaking rain with your jeans on. They'll never fit better.
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