From the last two years, a new fashion trend emerged into the United States: Raw Denim. This trend is especially emphasized by famous celebrities all across the country, particularly in male stars. It may not be something unforgettable, but I'm sure most of you have long ago noticed this, be it on the street or at school.
However, the culture of Raw Denim and the "cultivation" of these jeans had been practiced by Japanese people a long time ago.
For whatever reasons, let it be nostalgic or fashion, raw denim seems to be the "it" thing, I can see many people wearing these jeans all over the place; even H&M and Gap launched heavily advertised campaign to sell these new trends, emphasizing that the jeans are "authentic Japanese raw denim". Other upper end fahsion labels such as Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton soon also launched their own lines of Raw Denims.
Many people are hopping onto the raw denim bandwagon but are not realizing that the main purpose to wear these hard, stiff jeans is to create your own unique pair of jeans that fits SOLELY to the wearer. I am not here to criticize or demand anyone to wear whatever they are wearing for the purpose I proposed; but for those who wonder, here is a little something you can learn with no harm.
What is "CULTIVATION" of jeans? or in Chinese "養褲“(petting the jeans)
Well, like I mentioned before, it's quite simple, here is an illustration:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
As you can see, by wearing the jeans repeatedly over time, your own unique whiskers, wears and tears slowly develops, and the result a creation of your own unique pair of jeans.
Now, you can wear your raw denim whichever way you want to, but for the purpose of this post, I just want to emphasize that raw denims or retro jeans are really meant to be worn for this effect.
A common misconception then incurred due to the lack of information about these jeans. In short, all jeans, or any pants can be cultivated to create your own unique fadings and colorings or whatnot, however, most jeans out there will lose their dyes and will not last more than one year of wears and tear, as a result, you throw them away.
Most of the raw denims in the market today, particularly the Gap/BR, Polo, Guess, LRG or whatnot, are only trying to imitate the look and feel of raw denim and earn extra cash from this hype that emerged out of "nowhere", these brands made a name for themselves and right off ripping customers' money ($100 a pair.). The public are not aware of the fact that these jeans are meant to be worn for a LONG time to create such effects.
Take this picture for example:
B R E A T H - T A K I N G!!!
This is a pair of Levi's LVC cultivated from dark, stiff indigo form. (for about 2 years of wearing non-stop style.)
There is NO WAY IN HEAVEN that some high-end brands or popular brands like Gap jeans can do this. This effect is what ALL fashion apparel companies wish to mimic, the whiskers and the fades, it's so natural that people buy Pre-Washed jeans (such as Neighborhood from last post) that catches much attentions and simply just look so damn fine.
Take these other jeans for example:
They are all cultivated from the raw denim form.
The reason why I criticize some brands that introduced the raw denim line is that they simply are ripping YOUR money if you buy them for the look; because those jeans will simply tear after minor usage and you will only get a pair of black, stiff, broken pair of jeans that you spent $75 bucks on, in another word, buy QUALITY not superficial wannabe impressions.
Now, back to the topic, if you are interested still in the cultivation of the jeans, you may wonder how it is done. Here are a few tips:
1. Select a pair of QUALITY jeans!In order for you to create the desired effect, the jeans MUST be able to endure a long period of time of usage without tearing. Quality is the most essential key to creating such beautiful jeans like those above.
For a starter, you may want to consider Levi's, I mean...they've been around for almost 200 years, why do you think they're still around? because of MARKETINGGGGG!?
Levi's Raw denims are not bad, they are called 501XX, availible in Macy's and Sears. The reason why they added the "XX" after the style number 501 is because XX stands for Xtra Xtra strong jeans. THEY ARE TOUGH, so you can wear them continuously doing vigorous works without worrying that the jeans will tear and your undies will show.
Some other brands known for quality raw denims are:
SugarCane, Warehouse, Denime, A.P.C, Nudie, Evisu, Fullcount...etc.
Among these brands,
Fullcount will probably be regarded as the best retro jeans in the industry for now, I downloaded some pictures from the website, check it out:
...all great denims have the following characteristics:
-Durability, great cutton and weaving; note that just because your raw denim is super raw and heavy and thick and hard DOES NOT MEAN THEY HAVE GOOD QUALITY, GO WEAR CARDBOARD BOX THEN, they are hard but they will surely break. Good quality jeans will last at least 5 years, even if you wear them 24-7 non stop, they'll simply look doper and doper and eventually become the jeans for life that never fails you!
- Dyes, great dyes allow proper whiskers to show without fading too much overall, so that the whiskers and fading will look just right like the pictures above; most denims will lose its dye after 3-4 washes and become pale, the whiskers and fading then automatically disappear. However, dyes are not something we all can see even if we can actually touch the jeans. So...trust the brands then.
Some good quality jeans require MUCH longer for the dyes to fall off though, so if you're not ready to commit to such jeans for 2+ years then just wear them for the RAW rook.
- Accessories, quality denims pay attention to little details that you will won't usually see. The buttons, the stitchings(can you tell how many different color thread were being used in the last picture?) and the zippers, rare and good zippers can cost as much as $100 USD by itself!
Some pictures of great detailed Levi's Retro jeans(LVC):
Leather tag, two-toned stitch, Capital "E", chain stitches, redline selvedge, even the stickers and tags are the same as it was supposed to be 100 years ago.
2. WEAR THEM!!!
What's the point of spending $200 on a pair of high quality jeans with proper cares and all that? WEAR THEM! This soooooooooooooooooooooooo reminds me of these hypocritical sports care drivers in Foster City, I mean, if you want to drive a BMW, aka the ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE, then STOP THINKING ABOUT WHETHER YOU SHOULD STEP ON THE ACCELERATION PAD WHEN YOUR CAR MAY GET SCRATCHED WHEN THE FREAKING LIGHT TURNED
GREEN!
Anyway, my point is, to reach the desired effect, you must wear the jeans continously so that the indigo will slowly come off and thus creating the nice fades and whiskers. However, the downside is that you should NOT try and wash them too much, because you want to emphasize the whiskers, if you throw them into the machines 3 times a week, you will eventually get a nice pair of MONOTONE jeans, instead of the fabulous one I posted above.
It doesn't mean that you shouldn't wash them, you should still dry clean them as you see needed, there are many home dry cleaning patches available in Target, it's as easy as drying your wet clothes in the dryer.
...
and that's it, there are only 2 tips I got for you, and they are the most effective ways too; other things such as soaking your jeans with vinegars or whatnot are pretty much nonsense; just wear your real raw denim and wear them RAW, like you're supposed to. Try not to be a clean freak and clean your jeans like they're some LV shirts or whatever, remember, they are JEANS, JEANS are made to be TOUGH, they're meant to take care of YOU!
Alright, that's a long post, finally, I just want to post my A.P.C that I wore for a year just to share! All comments welcome!
1 month into wearing:
all black...
6 Months into wearing:
Though still dark, the whiskers and fades are showing now!
1 year into wearing:
^Cell phone ^cigarette burn... ^zippo and cigarettes
Washed twice; dry cleaned 4-5 times
Right behind the knees, this is the so-called "Beehive" effect
The full view.
So there it is, I hope this post helps you gain a better idea of the so called "Raw Denims", and for those of you who are interested, START YOUR OWN PAIR NOW! It's fun and it saves you money, why spend $70 bucks every 2 months for a pair that anyone else can buy? Create your own pair and wear it your style!
