Cheers. What size did you get in Bravestar?
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What jeans are you wearing today ?
- Thread starter Alexlutov
- Start date
Alexlutov
A-List Customer
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- 453
I bought these jeans, liked the price and the fact that this is con mills, if I understood correctly from the Internet, this company no longer exists..does anyone have any of these?
dudewuttheheck
I'll Lock Up
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- 4,277
I thought I knew quite a few denim brands, but I have to admit that I don't think that I've ever heard of that one before.
Alexlutov
A-List Customer
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- 453
ES335
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 202
- Location
- Baltimore. Actually, I love it.
32" waist.
You got a nice deal, all sold out now.
AeroFan_07
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,334
- Location
- Iowa
Yep looks like they are out of business now:
- Messages
- 16,464
I'm wearing only old Diesel jeans and I'm pretty sure at this point that it's the only jeans I ever gonna wear, when it comes to jeans. Italian made, preferable.
- Messages
- 16,464
Recently Backlash introduced a new line of very G-Star 3D's looking jeans which I find interesting because Backlash usually at the forefront of what's going to be worn so I wouldn't be surprised to see other repro brands take on this style in the near future. Can't wait to read the kind of blurbs they'll gonna come up with. XD
Bfd70
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,047
- Location
- Traverse city
Freenote Trabuco. I like the fit immensely. My only complaint is that the belt loops are noticeably narrow left to right.
dudewuttheheck
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,277
Alright, so I finally got my very special Conners Sewing Factory/One Piece of Rock jeans that I have been waiting close to 2 years for. For those of you who don't know, Conners Sewing Factory/One Piece of Rock is a denim brand in Japan, just a little northeast of Kyoto. There are a few denim-makers for the brand, but the main series of jeans is made by one person only - Yoshiakai Konaka, the founder and owner of the brand. I'm a huge fan of his jeans, having owned many pairs and two jackets. Plus, I've visited him and his sewing factory twice. He makes the most accurate 1940s Levis reproductions in the world. Even peak LVC wasn't this good. I was introduced to them by some friends from Denimbro and have been hooked ever since.
He uses period correct machines and also makes the jeans the same way they were made back then- with handfolded seams, quick and sometimes messy stitching, and not trimming off loose threads that would normally be cut off. This is the closest you can get to owning some of the rarest and most expensive Levis without paying the insane prices for vintage. Think of CSF as the Goodwear of jeans. Like Goodwear, he kind of blew up and now doesn't take orders directly, instead selling through his main store and to other stores mostly in Japan. I was able to place an order back in December of 2019 for a couple more pairs as I was losing weight because I knew the pairs I had would be too big for me soon.
The two pairs I ordered here were the D-42 "The Lost" and the 1946 first half. The 1946 first half are a standard model of his. They are a transition pair between the wartime restrictions of the WWII models and the 1947 pair which would become the standard of Levis going forward after that. A lot of people say that the 47 model is the standard blueprint for modern denim, so it's a pretty important model and the quirky details of the 1946 jeans are pretty interesting, including a mix of embossed buttons (47 model) and donut buttons (WWII models), having bar tacks as well as hidden rivets (WWII models did not have bar tacking) and still having the WWII denim rather than the more even denim of the 1947 model.
However, the real prize for me was being able to obtain the D-42 "The Lost" jeans. This is a very rare model based off an original pair that Konaka-San had access to. WWII jeans generally used all yellow stitching, but this model actually had orange stitching on the back pockets. This model isn't even in the 501XX book or any documentation of Levis that I have seen. Obviously, there are collectors and people more knowledgeable than me who knew that these existed, but they're still quite rare. This is the only reproduction that I know of and what's more, he had an actual pair to base them on.
I went with size 33 with the D-42 and size 34 for the 46 first half. My logic was that at least one of them would fit. CSF jeans fit like vintage jeans - I.E. undersized. I have a 30" waist, but I sized up by 3 and 4 because they fit undersized, taper at the hips, and because I have very thick buns and thighs. I'll discuss how that worked out in a bit. The order was placed in December of 2019 so I've been waiting for these for around 20 months which is quite a long time, especially considering how short I used to wait for my jeans. Part of this was due to the shipping issues caused by COVID, but part of it was just that he took a long time. In fairness, he always responded to my questions and he was nice enough to add the 46 pair onto the order. He also changed the sizing for me several times as I waited, so that was nice too.
I'll share some pics of the 46 first half, but I know that most of you will be interested in the D-42. Having now gotten more into vintage denim, especially vintage Levi's as well as having owned a couple pairs of WWII jeans, these feel pretty special. It's not that huge of a difference, but it is there and it's pretty interesting to see orange stitching on a WWII pair. Another interesting detail is the use of embossed buttons instead of the laurel and donut buttons, likely because this is a relatively early WWII model.
The denim is very neppy/snowy. A lot more than I expected. The picture he showed in the video of the original pair did show something a little more neppy, but I think this fabric is more extreme than the original, though this is brand new and it looked like the sample pair he had was washed a few times, so they could end up matching more. Something else worth noting is how dark this fabric is. It almost looks black and is definitely much darker than the normal WWII denim on the 46 first half. This fabric is only available on this model as he based it off of the original pair he had access to, so fading these should be pretty interesting.
Funny thing about the D-42 pair is that when I got them, I noticed that there was no red tab on them, despite there being a red tab on the 46 pair. I asked him about it and he rather sheepishly admitted that he must have forgotten to sew the red tab on them! I've gone back and forth on this issue. On one hand, it's a little annoying. On the other hand, it's also kind of hilarious. Thinking positively, it's a unique quirk that does actually fit in line with the whole ethos of the brand and the rushed construction of WWII Levis so I can't be too mad. Heck, if I never wore them or soaked them, it could be something that would have driven up their value. They're definitely a 1 of 1 now
In terms of fit, they actually ended up fitting fairly similarly to each other despite one being size 33 and the other size 34. I was worried about them being too tight in the butt and thigh area because that's where all my jeans have been tight lately. Fortunately, even after an hour long hot soak, they both fit quite well. No fit pics of the 46 first half yet, but I will include a couple of the d-42 in size 33.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here are some photos:
D-42 first:
Lots of weird CSF wonkiness, one of my favorite examples being the misaligned stitching on the top of the right pocket:
He uses period correct machines and also makes the jeans the same way they were made back then- with handfolded seams, quick and sometimes messy stitching, and not trimming off loose threads that would normally be cut off. This is the closest you can get to owning some of the rarest and most expensive Levis without paying the insane prices for vintage. Think of CSF as the Goodwear of jeans. Like Goodwear, he kind of blew up and now doesn't take orders directly, instead selling through his main store and to other stores mostly in Japan. I was able to place an order back in December of 2019 for a couple more pairs as I was losing weight because I knew the pairs I had would be too big for me soon.
The two pairs I ordered here were the D-42 "The Lost" and the 1946 first half. The 1946 first half are a standard model of his. They are a transition pair between the wartime restrictions of the WWII models and the 1947 pair which would become the standard of Levis going forward after that. A lot of people say that the 47 model is the standard blueprint for modern denim, so it's a pretty important model and the quirky details of the 1946 jeans are pretty interesting, including a mix of embossed buttons (47 model) and donut buttons (WWII models), having bar tacks as well as hidden rivets (WWII models did not have bar tacking) and still having the WWII denim rather than the more even denim of the 1947 model.
However, the real prize for me was being able to obtain the D-42 "The Lost" jeans. This is a very rare model based off an original pair that Konaka-San had access to. WWII jeans generally used all yellow stitching, but this model actually had orange stitching on the back pockets. This model isn't even in the 501XX book or any documentation of Levis that I have seen. Obviously, there are collectors and people more knowledgeable than me who knew that these existed, but they're still quite rare. This is the only reproduction that I know of and what's more, he had an actual pair to base them on.
I went with size 33 with the D-42 and size 34 for the 46 first half. My logic was that at least one of them would fit. CSF jeans fit like vintage jeans - I.E. undersized. I have a 30" waist, but I sized up by 3 and 4 because they fit undersized, taper at the hips, and because I have very thick buns and thighs. I'll discuss how that worked out in a bit. The order was placed in December of 2019 so I've been waiting for these for around 20 months which is quite a long time, especially considering how short I used to wait for my jeans. Part of this was due to the shipping issues caused by COVID, but part of it was just that he took a long time. In fairness, he always responded to my questions and he was nice enough to add the 46 pair onto the order. He also changed the sizing for me several times as I waited, so that was nice too.
I'll share some pics of the 46 first half, but I know that most of you will be interested in the D-42. Having now gotten more into vintage denim, especially vintage Levi's as well as having owned a couple pairs of WWII jeans, these feel pretty special. It's not that huge of a difference, but it is there and it's pretty interesting to see orange stitching on a WWII pair. Another interesting detail is the use of embossed buttons instead of the laurel and donut buttons, likely because this is a relatively early WWII model.
The denim is very neppy/snowy. A lot more than I expected. The picture he showed in the video of the original pair did show something a little more neppy, but I think this fabric is more extreme than the original, though this is brand new and it looked like the sample pair he had was washed a few times, so they could end up matching more. Something else worth noting is how dark this fabric is. It almost looks black and is definitely much darker than the normal WWII denim on the 46 first half. This fabric is only available on this model as he based it off of the original pair he had access to, so fading these should be pretty interesting.
Funny thing about the D-42 pair is that when I got them, I noticed that there was no red tab on them, despite there being a red tab on the 46 pair. I asked him about it and he rather sheepishly admitted that he must have forgotten to sew the red tab on them! I've gone back and forth on this issue. On one hand, it's a little annoying. On the other hand, it's also kind of hilarious. Thinking positively, it's a unique quirk that does actually fit in line with the whole ethos of the brand and the rushed construction of WWII Levis so I can't be too mad. Heck, if I never wore them or soaked them, it could be something that would have driven up their value. They're definitely a 1 of 1 now
In terms of fit, they actually ended up fitting fairly similarly to each other despite one being size 33 and the other size 34. I was worried about them being too tight in the butt and thigh area because that's where all my jeans have been tight lately. Fortunately, even after an hour long hot soak, they both fit quite well. No fit pics of the 46 first half yet, but I will include a couple of the d-42 in size 33.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here are some photos:
D-42 first:
Lots of weird CSF wonkiness, one of my favorite examples being the misaligned stitching on the top of the right pocket:
dudewuttheheck
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,277
How they fit:
Wait is a couple inches too big as expected, but that's just normal for me now in all my trousers. I can't really size by waist anymore. They're actually the most comfortable pair of jeans that I've had since I lost weight in my CSF 37s which is a big surprise.
Photos of the 46 pair:
Wait is a couple inches too big as expected, but that's just normal for me now in all my trousers. I can't really size by waist anymore. They're actually the most comfortable pair of jeans that I've had since I lost weight in my CSF 37s which is a big surprise.
Photos of the 46 pair:
ES335
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 202
- Location
- Baltimore. Actually, I love it.
Wow, great fabric and fit. And those boots... 'ave mercy!
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Jules Myers
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 133
Bravestar
ES335
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 202
- Location
- Baltimore. Actually, I love it.
Three pairs (2x 18oz, and a 21.5) and their Badlands jacket here and I'd buy more. Love 'em, but they seem to have trouble keeping 32s in stock. I was told they may be offering 25oz'ers this Fall, sure hope so...
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Mister Rivets
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 125
dudewuttheheck
I'll Lock Up
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- 4,277
nice! That's the same pair my fiance wears!
