Denim Endeavours
Posted 21st February 2025
I've been curious about clothing and personal style for a while now. It started when I was about 16 or 17, watching fashion YouTubers like Magnus Ronning and WhoIsJacov in my spare time, who would explain streetwear trends and do things like reviewing the new lookbooks dropped by the more hyped brands of the day; seemingly overnight I went from having a passing interest in sneaker culture to looking through the collections of brands like Gosha Rubchinskiy, Vetements, Supreme, or Palace on various reatilers or their own websites. Seeing these guys who weren't much older than I was talking about fashion but not in the cringey sort of way I'd heard it talked about by people like Alpha M in the past was refreshing, and made it more welcoming for me to try out some things that were more my personal taste.
Fashion had aluded me slightly up to that point. I knew roughly what I thought was "Cool" and who I thought dressed well, but I couldn't really tell you why I thoguht that way, just that person A did and person B did not. I also had no real clue where to actually get clothes from, or what certain styles were called. I can vividly remember seeing my Dad wearing a smart shirt at a family meal out at some pub for a relative's birthday and asking if he could take me to go out and buy some so I could start dressing a bit smarter. He was surprised I'd asked, but in the next week or so me and my family went out and picked up some new stuff.
I had gone out and grabbed my smart shirts. One which was a weird button down with two buttons on every space in the placket where one button would usually go, a black utility-styled-thing with epoulettes on the sleeves and little buttons on the elbows so when you rolled your sleeves up they could button and stay rolled, and a spread collar shirt which was white on the collar and cuffs and baby blue everywhere else, like some banker in the 80's would wear. I tried them all on that night and felt like a million pounds. In retrospect, they were all hideous, but this was the genesis of my interest in my own personal style up to this point. I think a lot of younger men have similar stories on discovering their own tastes.
Since my first smart shirts, I've cycled a lot of clothes in and out of my wardrobe. I was a suit-and-tie-to-college guy for a solid two weeks, gave a go at some sort of weird Suedehead thing with these big red Dr Martens boots that I'd got in the sales for cheap that didn't fit me at all, went through a stripey t-shirt indie kid phase, I thought I was Liam Gallagher when I first went to Uni and loaded up on Parka's and wore my Clarks Wallabees and Adidas Samba's everywhere I went, and I've thanked the eBay gods many a time after a night out waking up to some truly horrendous eBay offers and Depop messages that drunk Josh thought he could pull off.
Throughtout my various fashion escapades over the years thoguh, some things have remained constant - I've always loved Dr Martens boots and shoes, old Vietnam War era M65 Fishtail Parka's, beat up trainers and JEANS. And that last one, those ever iconic blue woven trousers are what this blog post is here to catalogue.
I've receently grabbed myself a pair of jeans I've been umming and arring about for a few years - a proper true blue 21oz pair of denim. Serious hardware. I've always been curious as to what exactly they'd be like, but had never given them a go myself, sticking to more conventional denim weights. I've got another pair of selvedge denim that clocks in at 13.5oz and that was quite nice for me, not too heavy but not light either. But I've been on the look out for a slim striaght ish pair of jeans or trousers that'll tickle my fancy, and these came on sale at just the right time.
A few days after I'd cliked the place order button the jeans arrived, and they're insane. As i'm writing this I've worn them for two days, and the things that they say about heavyweight denim, from my extremely limited experience as of right now, are true. They feel like cardboard. I can't put my hands in my pockets when I'm wearing them. They're hard to unbutton and even harder to button back up, and taking them off feels a bit like i'm wrestling them off because of the thickness of the material. That being said... I love them. They're exactly what I'm looking for, and are leaps and bounds better quality than I could have ever expected for the price I paid.
In so little time i can already see some of the creases that are forming, and I think they're gonna look amazing as they fade down and wear in. I'm unsure whether to go for the super high contrast fade look or the more vintage-y fade look, but I think I'll decided that when they hit 100 wears. I'm also working on another pair of lighter weight but more wide fitting denim, so that may take a while. The longer they go without washing, the better the fades, though!
Here are some pictures of the denim with some of the material specifications. They're The Unbranded Brand's UB621 Model which (once it's broken in and less stiff) will feel like a slim straight or tapered relaxed fit. At the minute thoguht with the weave being super stiff, they feel more like zero stretch jeggings.
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- Josh