Thursday 21 May 2015
Denim is a pretty magical thing. According to the website responsible for making me a sofa academic, Wikipedia, denim comes from the French town of Nimes and gets its name from there also; ‘de Nimes’ translating to “from Nimes”. But I’m not here to give a history lesson that I’m sure someone far more qualified could give better, instead I’m going to use this opportunity to talk about why I love wearing the fabric so much.
I bought this pair of A.P.C. jeans about 4 years ago, originally hoping to keep their deep raw indigo wash absolutely pristine. Of course in trying to do this I’d forgotten one of the great things about denim and that’s that the more faded and worn it gets, the better it looks and more importantly the better it feels to wear. I’ve never been a person who gets home and puts on a pair of jogging pants, which through some market research seems to put me in an incredibly small demographic. Frankly, I just don’t find them any more comfortable than a good pair of jeans. On occasion they may be warmer yes, but there’s something about wearing a pair of trousers that have pretty much moulded themselves to your body that makes me far happier.
Around the time when I first bought these and was hoping to keep them looking like they’d come straight out of the box the trend was very much for a clean cut, sartorial look and being slightly more impressionable than I perhaps am now I thought I’d better jump straight on board. In reality my own style, which I’ve grown to become a lot more comfortable with, has me looking more like a fifth member of CSNY than GQ’s finest and brightest. But everyone has their own thing and obviously trends come and go. From those people that like to dress in stiff rigid raw denim suits, through to the likes of me who will wear a pair of jeans until they quite literally fall apart, have them repaired and do it all over again, I'm sure we'll be back at stiff unblemished denim being cool before we know it.
The art of denim repair is an incredibly good skill and if I had a sewing machine and any of the knowhow I would certainly be tempted to give it a go myself, but until that's a situation I find myself in it’s definitely worth knowing of people who can do the job for you. In this instance I would without hesitation recommend taking a trip to Brick Lane and seeing the fine people at Son of a Stag where they offer an excellent denim repair service which has served me well many times.
I’ll never give up on these guys, no matter how many times I have to finally relent to washing them and watching their colour fade even more (what was once heartbreaking is now observed with much excitement). A recent addition, or subtraction if we’re being literal, involved hacking off the increasingly frayed turn ups - which I’m sure won't end well but for me this is denim at it’s best - stained, dirty and falling apart.
If you yourself are looking for a brand new pair of jeans to ruin I can recommend this very style from A.P.C., the absolutely fantastic range from Swedish brand Nudie and the Japanese Edwin. If denim jackets are your thing, this summer I’ve been rocking an amazing cream number from Our Legacy which I managed to snag at a sample sale a couple of years ago. An updated version with a zip is part of their current collection and I would really recommend snapping it up, because I’m pretty sure it will last forever.
