molasaki: April 2010

Listings,red lines,selfedge or selvedges what ever we call them but it all refers to the self edging fabric that has won popularity among the history of jeans today. Such fabrics made for denim is highly priced as the old looms that made these fabric might have dated for as long as the 1800's of course the wooden ones...To remake these self edge denim fabrics many have gone to old factories to restore the shuttle looms of the 50's and also the 20's. As these are old machines and they can only produce 30"
of fabric, it was costly and time consuming. They can only produce so much fabric at a time. Nowadays looms can be of 60" in width and is also producing much faster results compared to the prior. Jeans are a very essential part of our lives, there has to a time when we will only wear one favourite pair of jeans for a very long time even though we have a few others. It's more than just clothing it's part of us.
We will all still be finding the perfect fit and some of us will be lucky and some not. Raw denim has always been a significant part of my life, when i was younger my mum would always say that jeans will shrink and always buy bigger...but in the 90's it was hard to find raw unwashed denim here and stonewashes started to get in the market so the raw denim moved to make way for the millions of washed denim brands. Not to say self edges. I don't really remember having selfedges when i was younger but there has always been a certain mystery with the selfedges denim. It's interesting, intriguing. It takes a lot of appreciation and patience for the making of these fabrics. As most old generations will say old jeans will last longer and it's true because older vintage jeans are made of heavy cotton for example jeans nowadays is made from 8oz of cotton while jeans in the older days are made from 14 to 16oz of cotton per yard, naturally it will take longer for it to rip as it waill be almost two times thicker. reason for the are as jeans, dungerees and duck cotton were actually uniforms for sailors, riggers ,coal miners and most hard labour jobs.During that times of rough work jeans were really suitable to keep you safe, as I am a rigger myself...jeans for me are work gears. I will not give any kind of mercy for any pair that I own. I go to work,ride and basicly everywhere with it. But i do have a bad habit of not washing my jeans eh..but that is really how raw jeans should be treated.Weird huh! What makes these selfedges jeans special and fetch a high price for it today is because it is made exacly like how the olden day jeans were made,using the old revived shuttle looms of the 20's thru the 60's. The fabric are limited due to slow production but it a very very good quality fabric denim as the fabric will be much tighter and it won't expand as fast as the jeans of today. In the Levi's LVC all the jeans with the year on it is actually reproduce to match exactly how it was made in the year stated,using the original cone mills redline selvege denim!!The leather tags,rivets and also the fabric itself. It's not easy produce jeans that was made like 100 years ago and Levi's did it!! Nice huh, with the BIG 'E' all that stuffs. They even reproduce 501 jeans that was made in 1890 super vintage...Above all for me personally I'd rather pay a high price for these selfedges jeans rather than buying TAG BRANDED jeans as I know where the money is going to. The OLD SHUTTLE LOOMS and the way they make the jeans!! I mean look it's made from 12 thru 16oz of cotton and it's gonna last me for a very long time!! Even better it's gonna be a true vintage in the next 10 years and forver will be. New shuttle looms can't equal to the quality if older shuttle looms..as they say older is wiser, and it doesn't hurt as the raging colour of the redlines can always be an eye turner!!
Have fun!