Oh that's super exciting! It'll be cool to see how yours turn out over time. I actually have a third pair of 50s which I've washed less often and they faded differently, with more contrast in whiskers and honeycombs.
You can steal the looks of construction workers without actually working with your hands a day in your life. But you can't fake dad fades without actually raising a kid.
I've been wearing TCB denim for around 5 years now and have had similar results. I've tried a few other Japanese brands but keep coming back to these. They're just so good. Recently got their 50s Baker Pants as well, just fantastic.
Exactly! I have three pairs of the same 50s regulars😅 Have no clue why they’re still significantly more affordable than the rest of Japanese brands. No complaints about that either haha
Curiously, the founder of the brand Hajime Inoue told that he is into the first half of the 20th century workwear. But their 50s regular are the perfect “ivy style” jeans.
After the three pairs of 50s, I tried the 60s model but they have surprisingly low waist, so I ended up selling them.
Have their Baker pants as well and they age just beautifully 😍 I wish they had more room throughout the leg but maybe it just because of my height they look kinda slim on me
Great read, well timed for me too as I really came back around to denim this past year after some time off. Looking forward to a first wash next week after 1 yr of heavy wear on a 16.5oz pair from Freenote Cloth, but it’s really the couple pairs of very different types of denim I picked up in Japan this past October that I can’t wait to see take on a life of their own.
First wash after a year of wear is super exciting🔥 I assume they are still pretty dark but with whiskers and honeycombs already set in well and faded. I’m pretty sure they’ll turn out beautiful after the wash because fades will become clean and thus more contrasty
The Freenote Cloth are the Trabuco. Definitely expecting the first wash to bring out great whiskering as you said and I’ll be adopting an “every 15-20 wears” wash cycle from here on out. Two of the pairs from Japan are Japan Blue Jeans brand, one is unsanforized 17.5oz heavyweight slubby indigo brown-beige weft and the other is a 13.5 oz selvedge straight leg. The other pair are from Sugar Cane, not sure what the weight is but they unsanforized and I think they might be the best fitting jeans I’ve ever owned.
The only thing I worry about when washing, regardless of sanforized or unsanforized, is shrinking. Especially throughout the leg, as it doesn’t stretch back to regular fit. At some point I just started buying bigger sized waist which is too wide in the beginning but shrinks just right over time, whereas legs keep a decent width.
Agreed. Took me many years of trial and error with various brands to figure that out. So far sizing up in the waist with Freenote pairs has worked out, hope the same goes for the various Japanese pairs, will be another month or so of wear for each before 1st wash though. Silver lining to it being relatively warm all week in Nashville is its prime raw/selvedge denim weather.
Thank you so much for asking questions, really. Talking so much about how jeans look after so many washes, I totally should have mentioned how I actually washed them 😅
Anyway, I either use a regular cotton cycle (usually runs for about 2–2.5 hours) or a rapid wash (30 minutes), depending on how dirty jeans feel to me. The only three principles that I follow are washing jeans inside out, at 30° C, and separately from other items.
Washing the jeans inside out is crucial to me because it prevents weird creasing fades that you mention. Although machine wash in general and more frequent machine wash in particular does lead to a more contrasty, almost lightning bolt-like fading pattern around stitching — I mention this in the article. I haven't seen such a pattern on the pairs that I only hand-washed. The pair from the article doesn't feel artificial to me because of the pattern, I actually dig it.
I don't use temperature above 30° C because I feel like denim continues to shrink even after numerous washes. It does stretch back in the waist but because the fabric doesn't experience much stretch throughout the leg when wearing, over time many of my jeans turned from regular-fitting into skinny. I talked about this in my other article: https://vctnson.substack.com/i/141075696/shrinking
I don't really have any reasoning for washing jeans separately, it's just a habit.
Literally picking up my first pair of TCB 50s today and very excited to start this process. Thanks for sharing!
Oh that's super exciting! It'll be cool to see how yours turn out over time. I actually have a third pair of 50s which I've washed less often and they faded differently, with more contrast in whiskers and honeycombs.
Since my toddler uses me as a human napkin I'm guessing these will be seeing the washing machine often.
You can steal the looks of construction workers without actually working with your hands a day in your life. But you can't fake dad fades without actually raising a kid.
A-fucking-men
I've been wearing TCB denim for around 5 years now and have had similar results. I've tried a few other Japanese brands but keep coming back to these. They're just so good. Recently got their 50s Baker Pants as well, just fantastic.
Exactly! I have three pairs of the same 50s regulars😅 Have no clue why they’re still significantly more affordable than the rest of Japanese brands. No complaints about that either haha
Curiously, the founder of the brand Hajime Inoue told that he is into the first half of the 20th century workwear. But their 50s regular are the perfect “ivy style” jeans.
After the three pairs of 50s, I tried the 60s model but they have surprisingly low waist, so I ended up selling them.
Have their Baker pants as well and they age just beautifully 😍 I wish they had more room throughout the leg but maybe it just because of my height they look kinda slim on me
I worried about this too because of the classic TCB shrink so I got a size up and moved the waist buttons inwards an inch. Perfect wide fit
Great read, well timed for me too as I really came back around to denim this past year after some time off. Looking forward to a first wash next week after 1 yr of heavy wear on a 16.5oz pair from Freenote Cloth, but it’s really the couple pairs of very different types of denim I picked up in Japan this past October that I can’t wait to see take on a life of their own.
First wash after a year of wear is super exciting🔥 I assume they are still pretty dark but with whiskers and honeycombs already set in well and faded. I’m pretty sure they’ll turn out beautiful after the wash because fades will become clean and thus more contrasty
Which ones did you pick up?
The Freenote Cloth are the Trabuco. Definitely expecting the first wash to bring out great whiskering as you said and I’ll be adopting an “every 15-20 wears” wash cycle from here on out. Two of the pairs from Japan are Japan Blue Jeans brand, one is unsanforized 17.5oz heavyweight slubby indigo brown-beige weft and the other is a 13.5 oz selvedge straight leg. The other pair are from Sugar Cane, not sure what the weight is but they unsanforized and I think they might be the best fitting jeans I’ve ever owned.
The only thing I worry about when washing, regardless of sanforized or unsanforized, is shrinking. Especially throughout the leg, as it doesn’t stretch back to regular fit. At some point I just started buying bigger sized waist which is too wide in the beginning but shrinks just right over time, whereas legs keep a decent width.
Agreed. Took me many years of trial and error with various brands to figure that out. So far sizing up in the waist with Freenote pairs has worked out, hope the same goes for the various Japanese pairs, will be another month or so of wear for each before 1st wash though. Silver lining to it being relatively warm all week in Nashville is its prime raw/selvedge denim weather.
Great article! Wondering if you can share your wash process? (and specific washing products used?)
Good call! I don’t care too much (😅) and wash at 30° C with no color-specific liquid detergent (like Ecover, Persil, BioMio, Frosch)
Interesting! What wash cycle do you use? Gentle? Just wondering bc I know some cycles are intense and can cause permanent creasing in the denim.
Thank you so much for asking questions, really. Talking so much about how jeans look after so many washes, I totally should have mentioned how I actually washed them 😅
Anyway, I either use a regular cotton cycle (usually runs for about 2–2.5 hours) or a rapid wash (30 minutes), depending on how dirty jeans feel to me. The only three principles that I follow are washing jeans inside out, at 30° C, and separately from other items.
Washing the jeans inside out is crucial to me because it prevents weird creasing fades that you mention. Although machine wash in general and more frequent machine wash in particular does lead to a more contrasty, almost lightning bolt-like fading pattern around stitching — I mention this in the article. I haven't seen such a pattern on the pairs that I only hand-washed. The pair from the article doesn't feel artificial to me because of the pattern, I actually dig it.
I don't use temperature above 30° C because I feel like denim continues to shrink even after numerous washes. It does stretch back in the waist but because the fabric doesn't experience much stretch throughout the leg when wearing, over time many of my jeans turned from regular-fitting into skinny. I talked about this in my other article: https://vctnson.substack.com/i/141075696/shrinking
I don't really have any reasoning for washing jeans separately, it's just a habit.