Denim Jackets - New or Vintage

dwilson · May 6, 2021

My PBJ (24oz) and Samurai (22?) both frayed terribly at the creases on me. I personally have been gravitating less and less away from the ultra heavy fabrics just for personal preference but I've always felt it was a misleading opinion where heavy = long lasting. I've had heavy jeans disentigrate on me, I've had light weight jeans disentigrate on me and I've had both types last a while. It mostly comes down to the cotton and how the denim is loomed.

Iron Heart makes pretty uninteresting fabric but it lasts a super long time. They also use poly cotton thread on their stitches to make sure the thread doesn't evaporate like other Japanese repro jeans. But my 14oz Iron Hearts I've been wearing for 2 years straight now and outside of the typical issue of reinforcing the denim where my cell phone edges are they're perfect and not going anywhere using the same wash and wear pattern as all my other denim which fell apart.

dubpynchon · May 6, 2021

dwilson said:
Iron Heart makes pretty uninteresting fabric but it lasts a super long time. They also use poly cotton thread on their stitches to make sure the thread doesn't evaporate like other Japanese repro jeans. But my 14oz Iron Hearts I've been wearing for 2 years straight now and outside of the typical issue of reinforcing the denim where my cell phone edges are they're perfect and not going anywhere using the same wash and wear pattern as all my other denim which fell apart.

Older Levi’s, before they became the rubbish cotton they are now, were 14 oz. I’ve been tempted by a pair of Iron Heart 14 oz for the last few weeks but I’m trying to save, what a pain.

dwilson · May 6, 2021

dubpynchon said:
Older Levi’s, before they became the rubbish cotton they are now, were 14 oz. I’ve been tempted by a pair of Iron Heart 14 oz for the last few weeks but I’m trying to save, what a pain.

I'm a fan of the fabric. It fades a bit more grey-cast than the 21 oz. But I've owned IH in the 14, 21 and 25 oz denims now and I think I like the 14 the most in terms of everyday wear. I think the 21oz fades to a prettier color, though.

navetsea · May 7, 2021

dwilson said:
My PBJ (24oz) and Samurai (22?) both frayed terribly at the creases on me. I personally have been gravitating less and less away from the ultra heavy fabrics just for personal preference but I've always felt it was a misleading opinion where heavy = long lasting. I've had heavy jeans disentigrate on me, I've had light weight jeans disentigrate on me and I've had both types last a while. It mostly comes down to the cotton and how the denim is loomed.

Iron Heart makes pretty uninteresting fabric but it lasts a super long time. They also use poly cotton thread on their stitches to make sure the thread doesn't evaporate like other Japanese repro jeans. But my 14oz Iron Hearts I've been wearing for 2 years straight now and outside of the typical issue of reinforcing the denim where my cell phone edges are they're perfect and not going anywhere using the same wash and wear pattern as all my other denim which fell apart.

is it possible the short strain cotton some denim manufacturer pick to have hairy texture jeans or low tension to make wobbly weaving creating slub /less uniform fabrics in the end they make it less durable?
I don't have IH but I have 19 and 24oz in smooth long staple (xinjiang?) cotton with not much character, and 21 in hairy texture japanese fabrics. seems like the hairy one will degrade sooner in the future based on the belt loop, and waist buttonhole of the 3 jeans... currently all 3 pants still looking new being 1 and 2 and half years old.

navetsea · May 7, 2021

CatsCan said:
LOL, yes! I also find it weird to go after certain fades and distress a jeans to make them look "better". I use them like I would any other pant and "fades" will come naturally. I don't speed up things artificially.

This is also my experience. And the raw denim wearers will be more likely to have their pants repaired than a nylon only wearer.

True, the fanatical 21 oz denims will literally brake at the creases just because the fabric is too stiff and there is often too much starch.
There is a good reason, why a tiny amount of elastane (stretch) can increase the durability of denim.
When people avoid washing their raw denim, fine particles of sand dust will contribute to this, acting like micro knives cutting the fibers. Same with bacteria who breed on sweat and organic dirt when not washed out frequently. So from time to time washing helps. It is a matter of how we treat things we own and how we care for them. I am not rich. I try to take care of my clothes to avoid buying new.

Would anyone do this with a cheapo mall jeans or a nylon pant? I guess no. Again, i tend to hope, that people who invest in a "good" pair of jeans, think more about sustainability and take more care of them, repair them rather than to toss them. I don't think that "raw denim wearers" (by the way, I don't wear raw denim, my Pikes are not "raw", they are sanforized) generally crawl through mud just to fit into the weird fade-friday community. The majority will be like you and me.

Couldn't agree more with this. I was once taking part at an archaeological exhibition project. Alongside a wall in the exhibition we placed the imaginary archaeological footprint formed by household waste of an average family of one year, beginning with the Mesolithic and ending in the 1990s. Every era had one meter in the length and space up to the ceiling which was in 6 meters height. For the Mesolithic we could not even fill the meter in length with one layer. Neolithic was covering the length of a meter. Medieval was piling 10 cm in height. The 16th century was at 50 cm. That was because of cheap mass produced pottery. It all started to explode in the end of the 1950s with one and a half meter height. Cheap mass produced glass and early plastic beverages came into wide spread use. The 1990s family reached the ceiling. That was impressive! A huge role played the deterioration qualities of the waste. The 1990s column was mostly filled with plastic waste! While we have knowledge about what had survived 10000 years (pottery, flint tools, some wood pieces or bone items) we can not really estimate, what would be left of the plastic after the same amount of time. It is an important question, though. What will be the best way to store it? Burning PE plastics lets CO2 out into the atmosphere but leaves only a small lump of carbon-compound to be buried. Storing it in a water logged mud will give bacteria the chance to eventually deteriorate the plastic over a long period of time. The best way will be to stop producing it in the beginning.

I wait for the moment, when people like Musk come up with the idea to transport our waste to a trash planet.

Once human find technology to make different engine to cheaply launch space ship then probably we will ship our trash and launch it in the direction of the sun, but hey in the long run a sediment of plastic is probably useful to keep water layer in the soil at certain depth and make the crust more humid and fertile perhaps future generations long after humankind find a better material for pants and wrappers might benefit of what we do now trashing spandex yoga pants in the soil laminating a layer of soil with plastic.

anyway, I have yet to trash any nylon hiking pants in the dust bin, 10 years of ownership and still looking new, I have guilty of trashing spandex brief-boxers from time to time, but I still try patching a hole on my underpants if not too trashed though using same spandex material salvaged from dead underpants, I have done my best

CatsCan · May 7, 2021

navetsea said:
is it possible the short strain cotton some denim manufacturer pick to have hairy texture jeans or low tension to make wobbly weaving creating slub /less uniform fabrics in the end they make it less durable?

Yes this is possible. Long staple cotton like the famous old "Egyptian Cotton" can be spun into very fine fibers without disintegration when under tension. Threads can be very thin and woven very tight. Standard thread gauges of this same material are extremely durable for a cotton material. The advantage of long staple cotton is that it is usually combed very intensive and thus cleaned from scales and other hard debris from the farming site more thoroughly. The sometimes wanted rough touch of some other denim fabrics is due to lifted ends of short fibers and small remains of leaf matter, cotton trash or seeds as a result of imperfect ginning and less combing. Asian short staple cotton on the other hand has a high strength in the single fiber compared to long staple cotton before spinning. So the difference is that long staple cotton, although lower in strength of a single fiber, can be spun differently to make a stronger thread of the same gauge in the end than could be made with short staple cotton. Older military clothes are a good example of durable and long lasting fabrics made of long staple cotton. Organic cotton is often times produced with a lower environmental impact during manufacture, so ginning is done less intensive and less water is used and sometimes has the downside of having trouble with debris of other plants and leaf matter. If this issue can be solved in the near future the durability will be sufficient for work clothes. This is the reason, why outdoor and work clothes manufacturers use organic cotton mostly in a blend with other - often times man made - materials.
The scales or leaf matter contain Silicates like SiO2·nH2O (Opal), which can act like microscopic knives.
So aside from the way, the customer uses denim and the kind of care taken, cotton raw material, preparation and manufacturing, chemicals used, all play a role in how durable the fabric will be. No one can be sure that a new batch of a otherwise proven and favorite denim item will have the same qualities.

CatsCan · May 7, 2021

This image of cotton may explain the above mentioned possible debris:

navetsea · May 7, 2021

CatsCan said:
Yes this is possible. Long staple cotton like the famous old "Egyptian Cotton" can be spun into very fine fibers without disintegration when under tension. Threads can be very thin and woven very tight. Standard thread gauges of this same material are extremely durable for a cotton material. The advantage of long staple cotton is that it is usually combed very intensive and thus cleaned from scales and other hard debris from the farming site more thoroughly. The sometimes wanted rough touch of some other denim fabrics is due to lifted ends of short fibers and small remains of leaf matter, cotton trash or seeds as a result of imperfect ginning and less combing. Asian short staple cotton on the other hand has a high strength in the single fiber compared to long staple cotton before spinning. So the difference is that long staple cotton, although lower in strength of a single fiber, can be spun differently to make a stronger thread of the same gauge in the end than could be made with short staple cotton. Older military clothes are a good example of durable and long lasting fabrics made of long staple cotton. Organic cotton is often times produced with a lower environmental impact during manufacture, so ginning is done less intensive and less water is used and sometimes has the downside of having trouble with debris of other plants and leaf matter. If this issue can be solved in the near future the durability will be sufficient for work clothes. This is the reason, why outdoor and work clothes manufacturers use organic cotton mostly in a blend with other - often times man made - materials.
The scales or leaf matter contain Silicates like SiO2·nH2O (Opal), which can act like microscopic knives.
So aside from the way, the customer uses denim and the kind of care taken, cotton raw material, preparation and manufacturing, chemicals used, all play a role in how durable the fabric will be. No one can be sure that a new batch of a otherwise proven and favorite denim item will have the same qualities.

thanks! that is a very interesting read, real knowledge, unlike copy pasted pseudo logic in "green denim" articles google been feeding me to read everyday lately, it's not like I jab at denim randomly, I like wearing jeans, but for the past 2 weeks or so I've been suggested green denim articles by google on my phone almost daily, always a disguise to sell some jeans, and for some reason I always click to read them.

sweetfights · May 7, 2021

ton312 said:
I disagree with the argument that heavy denim will break faster than light denim. I have my first pair of IH 21oz and they are 10 years old and I still wear them on a regular basis. I have blown out the knee/ crotch on countless pairs of Levis over the same course of time. I no longer own a pair of jeans under 21oz and won't ever again. I wash them regularly and hang them to dry. People who don't wash their jeans in search of some "sick fades" are the people whose jeans fall apart, regardless the weight.

Personally, I would sooner run a cheese grater over my balls and take a bath in hot sauce, than wear a pair of stretch jeans.

Agreed.
My 21 oz IH jeans are solid and I can't imagine a hole ever happening. I also have an IH 21 oz jacket from Ton and man, the 21 oz stuff is tough.

CatsCan · May 7, 2021

sweetfights said:
My 21 oz IH jeans are solid and I can't imagine a hole ever happening. I also have an IH 21 oz jacket from Ton and man, the 21 oz stuff is tough.

I bet you are not fanatic about starching and frequently re-starching and never washing but wearing them as a 21 oz cardbord stiff harnish daily like some do just for the sake of sick fade patterns. IH heavy weight denim seems to have a good balance between being thick but not too stiff. My "heaviest" denim was 16.5 oz, but a loose weave, washed regularly. It only developed "holes" from abrasion in the crotch area and at the folds of the cuffs, maybe from the boots. I wore them three years. Could still sell them for 110 €

Edward · May 7, 2021

dwilson said:
My PBJ (24oz) and Samurai (22?) both frayed terribly at the creases on me. I personally have been gravitating less and less away from the ultra heavy fabrics just for personal preference but I've always felt it was a misleading opinion where heavy = long lasting. I've had heavy jeans disentigrate on me, I've had light weight jeans disentigrate on me and I've had both types last a while. It mostly comes down to the cotton and how the denim is loomed.

Can't speak to Iron Heart as tbh I've just never wanted to spend that sort of money on a pair of jeans. My experience with all sorts of other brands however has been that when jeans wear on me, it's always between the upper thighs, and as a rule lighter denim will often wear much slower than heavier. Or at least there's no correlation between weight and durability for me. I wear my jeans until they need washed, then I wash 'em. As to fades, if I could find a pair if indigo jeans in the fit I like that were treated so as to never fade, that's the ones I'd buy first. I've never been into clothes looking worn out.

dubpynchon said:
Older Levi’s, before they became the rubbish cotton they are now, were 14 oz. I’ve been tempted by a pair of Iron Heart 14 oz for the last few weeks but I’m trying to save, what a pain.

I've seen vintage denim that was as light as 8oz, rarely anything heavier than 14oz. My Wranger 13MWZ are 14 oz; back in the day the 13MWZ was, of course, 13oz. That said, they were for the first couple of years from '47 the 11MWZ, and 11oz, which was fairly average at the time. Super-heavy denim is a relatively recent fad. I'd not be against it, but I've never felt the need to pay the big money for it. Oddly enough, it's only really this year with the lockdowns and working from home that I've gone back to wearing jeans with any regularity, which is the main reason I'm not so keen on shelling out big money on them.

Trenchfriend · May 7, 2021

I'm surprised, actually!
On german market, slim-fit seems to be stopping, regular-fit jeans is coming back!!

Ernest P Shackleton · May 7, 2021

Anyone know the weight of the old vintage 80s and prior Oshkosh dungarees and bibs? Triple stitched. Thinner denim and very loose fit for the summer.

sweetfights · May 7, 2021

CatsCan said:
I bet you are not fanatic about starching and frequently re-starching and never washing but wearing them as a 21 oz cardbord stiff harnish daily like some do just for the sake of sick fade patterns. IH heavy weight denim seems to have a good balance between being thick but not too stiff. My "heaviest" denim was 16.5 oz, but a loose weave, washed regularly. It only developed "holes" from abrasion in the crotch area and at the folds of the cuffs, maybe from the boots. I wore them three years. Could still sell them for 110 €

Very worth the investment!

sweetfights · May 7, 2021

CatsCan said:
I bet you are not fanatic about starching and frequently re-starching and never washing but wearing them as a 21 oz cardbord stiff harnish daily like some do just for the sake of sick fade patterns. IH heavy weight denim seems to have a good balance between being thick but not too stiff. My "heaviest" denim was 16.5 oz, but a loose weave, washed regularly. It only developed "holes" from abrasion in the crotch area and at the folds of the cuffs, maybe from the boots. I wore them three years. Could still sell them for 110 €

The folded cuffs take a beating especially if they are sufficiently long. I do not fold the cuffs on the 21 oz IH. You are correct on not being a starcher and never wash guy. Not for me.

dudewuttheheck · May 7, 2021

dwilson said:
I'd argue that is more just Iron Heart. Their jeans last forever.

Not really. I've seen plenty of iron heart jeans have issues and get blowouts and such. Something like Greasepoint Workwear would likely be more durable.

Iron Heart wasn't made to spe fiscally be durable. They were made for actual motorcyclists. That's why the denim was 21oz.

In my experience, heavy denim is no more durable than regular weight denim if you wash them consistently. I've owned heavy and regular weight and they both had crotch blowouts at basically the same time.

ton312 · May 7, 2021

dudewuttheheck said:
Not really. I've seen plenty of iron heart jeans have issues and get blowouts and such. Something like Greasepoint Workwear would likely be more durable.

Iron Heart wasn't made to spe fiscally be durable. They were made for actual motorcyclists. That's why the denim was 21oz.

In my experience, heavy denim is no more durable than regular weight denim if you wash them consistently. I've owned heavy and regular weight and they both had crotch blowouts at basically the same time.

That sounds like a sizing issue. My IH jeans have never blown out, to be fair neither have my N&F or unbranded’s. Please don’t take this wrong way but, from the pics I’ve seen you post, my personal feeling is you wear your pants too tight/small, or at least that’s the impression I get from the pics. Crotch blow outs are a direct result of undersized pants and stressed thighs plus the waist not sitting at the correct level on the body.

navetsea · May 8, 2021

isn't blowing out more about some moving parts that brushing against each other in regular wear. not really about stretching fit, I wear my jeans pretty tight on the top, but once the jeans shrink and stretch after initial breaking in, the size has become stable at my comfort size every movement afterward doesn't give any more stress to the denim than normal.

Mich486 · May 8, 2021

I’ve been wearing pretty consistently a pair of LVC 501 1915 model that are made of a very nice... hold tight... 9oz unsanforized denim! I’ll let you know if the blow out sooner than my heavier pairs.

Here is a close up of the fabric

I really like it. Believe is the same as what the 1880 triple blouse is made of.

dudewuttheheck · May 8, 2021

ton312 said:
That sounds like a sizing issue. My IH jeans have never blown out, to be fair neither have my N&F or unbranded’s. Please don’t take this wrong way but, from the pics I’ve seen you post, my personal feeling is you wear your pants too tight/small, or at least that’s the impression I get from the pics. Crotch blow outs are a direct result of undersized pants and stressed thighs plus the waist not sitting at the correct level on the body.

Don't worry I won't take it wrong because you're not wrong. I don't have issues with crotch blowouts now that I've lost so much weight. Either way, those jeans all blew out no matter the weight of the denim. With that said, my stuff does fit tight because I have to compromise in some way. Firstly, I really hate when the waist fits loose on me. Secondly and more importantly, my waist and thighs/rear do not match up. A lot of my stuff that fits in the waist doesn't fit in the rest of the top block. It's not easy to balance it out. Some of what I have that does fit in the top block is way too loose in the waist.

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