Dirty Denim Project 1: The Plan, the Pattern, and the Denim
THE PLAN
August
I can still remember that time in seventh grade when I got very, very particular about the clothes I wore. The shirts could only be solid colors, entirely plain—I had four of the same T-shirt in different colors that I would rotate day by day. The pants had to be blue jeans, with no decorative stitching on the back pockets and no outside label showing the brand. Add to that that they had to fit my adolescent body, and we could not find these particular jeans in existence. The best we could do was buy two identical pairs with the leather patch on the back waistband, which my mom picked off for me. The final requirement was that I would not wear them more than once without them being cleaned. I did not do my own laundry, and I’m not sure why my mom put up with washing our clothes at least every other day, but that was my life for a few months. As of last spring, I’d wash every 2-3 wears.
A while back, I was listening to some fashion history podcasts, and I came across one episode all about blue jeans (Articles of Interest #5). The thing that stuck with me was the truly negative consequences that this ubiquitous fashion item has on the environment. Acid washing, stone washing, WASHING—it uses so much water! On the flip side, there is raw denim, which has never been washed or distressed in any way, and, I hear, is very uncomfortable. It must be worn, and worn, and worn in many times WITHOUT washing for a long time (or ever!) to get it to break down and take the form of your own distinct body. That’s disgusting.
I currently reside in the desert; it does not rain here. But this past summer, the lack of rain was finally classified as “drought conditions,” and every time I’d turn on the news, they were reporting about trying to get people to conserve water. Don’t water your lawn, they’d say. And there I was, running around town most mornings, seeing sprinklers going on every lawn and business (my apartment complex, the place where I work), and I couldn’t really take it; but also, I felt hopeless knowing that there was nothing I could do about it. I’m originally from a place where it rains, but also the grass turns brown in the summer—that’s my perspective of how the earth should be treated. Nothing about this water waste felt OK to me.
I started to think about when the weather gets cooler—so much of what I wear is pants, and almost exclusively jeans. I didn’t like that idea, and I decided to start planning a new wardrobe that wouldn’t rely so heavily on jeans. I bought fabrics to make three new pairs of pants, and planned to phase out jeans by wearing them no more than three days a week. Eventually, maybe, they could be gone from my wardrobe altogether. A week later, I pivoted, turned right around again and thought, what about this whole raw denim deal? Maybe I should do THAT. Maybe I could be a little bit disgusting.
As far as I can tell, the raw denim jeans game is predominantly a man thing. There are some brands that make raw jeans for women, but I didn’t look into it much because I knew I needed to make them myself. As someone who makes clothes for a living, I don’t really feel like I make enough money to spend on clothes, except cheap ones, which I increasingly don’t feel good about wearing. And raw denim jeans are EXPENSIVE. I decided to start with finding and ordering the fabric, creating the pattern according to my measurements and style preferences, constructing the jeans, and then wearing them in, the natural way. I’ll play this game by my own rules, made up as I go.
Would seventh grade Jessica be proud of me? Definitely not, but she can go ahead and stay in 2001 where she belongs.
THE EXPERIMENT: Create a custom pair of raw denim jeans to my body’s specifications. Wear them for three months, a few days a week (or as long as possible) without washing. Watch them develop the patina of my life. Feel them learning to relax on my body as I learn to relax through them. Hate myself less for existing in a society I believe to be inconsiderate, and love myself more for doing what I can to make it better.
THE PATTERN
Labor Day Weekend
I do most of my at-home patterning on uncrumpled brown paper packaging that comes free with some stuff I order online. It’s my favorite bonus gift from merchants who choose to package in that way. My apartment complex doesn’t recycle, but at least I can reuse this paper. However, I was running low on large enough pieces of paper to draft out my pants, so I used a partial roll of brown paper that was purchased years ago.
I began by following the directions for drafting women’s jeans in Patternmaking for Fashion Design, 5th Edition, by Helen Joseph Armstrong, according to my measurements. For styling, I was going for a higher-waisted pant, fitted through the hips, with more of a “boyfriend” fit in the legs. My calves have had it with skinny jeans, and anyway, the denim I purchased for this project has no spandex content, so I knew not to make them too tight.
I am using a selvedge denim for these jeans, so after the initial draft, my next step was to adjust the pattern so that there was no shaping in the outseam. This was a pretty simple adjustment, and just created a lot more shaping along the inseams. I also added 2” in length, for a cuff.
After the basic leg pieces were set, I incorporated the classic jeans styling, with waistband, back yoke, back patch pockets, and front pockets. I opted for a waistband that would start about one inch below my natural waist.
I knew it would be important to make a mock-up of these jeans, because the proper construction of jeans (with all of the topstitching) does not allow for any easy adjustments. I don’t have much muslin in my stash, so I selected a fabric that I had just enough of that I thought I was unlikely ever to use for anything else. The mock-up felt pretty good, and mostly needed minor adjustments, beyond taking in the waistband quite a bit and increasing the rise in the back. I corrected my pattern and then waited for the denim to arrive.
THE DENIM
Initially all I knew for sure was that I wanted a raw selvedge denim. I checked all of the online stores that I have purchased fabric from, and couldn’t find it. The top google searches were coming up with results of fabrics sold in other countries. How hard could it be to find a US-based denim manufacturer/seller? I finally landed on the White Oak Shop, selling Cone Denim out of North Carolina. Since the closing of their US factory in 2017, the fabrics are manufactured in China and Mexico. As far as I can tell, there are no longer any US manufacturers of this denim.
For this particular experiment, I purchased a 3-yard roll of Style J59851: Cone Deeptone Denim 100% Organic Cotton Selvage with Indigo ID. This is a 12.25 oz, right hand twill, 30 ½” wide, medium – distilled indigo dyed, 100% organic cotton, sanforized raw selvedge denim.
Raw denim means that it has not been washed. The selvedge/selvage is the firm woven edge of the fabric. Selvedge denims are woven on vintage looms that produce a narrower fabric, with a clean selvedge in contrast threads. Sanforized means that it has been pre-shrunk using the sanforization process. A raw, unsanforized denim has the potential to shrink up to 10% after its first wash. Sanforizing shrinks the fabric by running it through a machine which applies steam or water and then presses it against a hot rubber band to relax the fibers. There might still be some shrinkage after the first wash, but only a small percentage.
A weight of 12.25 oz is on the lower end of the mid-weight range. Lighter weights are more comfortable and are quicker to break in, but don’t show as much wear, and heavier weights are the most uncomfortable but develop the best fades, apparently. I did not think or care about the weight of the denim when I purchased, but low-mid weight sounds good to me.
A right hand twill is one where the diagonal lines of the twill go from top right to bottom left. It is much more common than the left hand twill, where the diagonal runs in the opposite direction. Left hand twills feel softer, the white threads are more apparent on the front of the fabric, and the fades are blurrier. I also did not care about this.
The selvage denims produced by White Oak are woven on a vintage American Draper X3 model loom circa 1940. To see photos of these looms and learn more about Cone’s history on the cusp of its factory’s closing, visit https://craftsmanship.net/the-secret-to-vintage-jeans/ (it’s a bit of an emotional read). These antique looms create fabrics which might have imperfections, and I’m excited about that. The indigo ID means that the color of the thread running within the white selvage is indigo. Other colors may be used, and can help the manufacturer to easily identify the different types of denim within the factory.
This organic cotton is grown without pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or genetically engineered seed. My decision whether to purchase organic is mostly motivated by cost. The price of this fabric per yard was the same as another non-organic one I was considering, and was available in a 3-yard roll (the smallest amount I could get of the other was 5 yards), so it was actually the cheaper choice.
The threads of the fabric were dyed using distilled indigo, which according to my research, was developed specifically for Cone Denim by the DyStar Group and launched in 2019. It’s a more eco-conscious dyeing process, as the indigo is pre-reduced, the process is salt-free, and it reduces water, waste, and energy consumptions as compared with regular indigo dyeing. I did not know this when I purchased the fabric, but I love how it supports my mission of reduced water waste and eco-consciousness.
I also purchased a 3-yard roll of Style C010J: Limited Edition Clean Water Selvage with Teal I.D. in Support of Water.org, because of my water conservation angle. I am not using it for this experiment as it has a spandex content, which felt like cheating, and also would be more difficult to plan and pattern with that added element of stretch. I was tempted by several of their other fabrics as well, but I limited myself to just two denims for now.
