JEANS

robyn in your case it doesn't matter since your jeans are a stretch blend, so soak or no soak they're not going to change shape.

my greatest concern here is just that they don't lose their shape
xp
okay good!

so do i have to stick to the no-washing for 6-months thing or ?

that has to do w/ the color and fading, not the shape

the thinking is that moving in your jeans causes the cotton fibers to bend and flex which weakens the bond between dye and fabric. similarly parts of the jeans rub up against things which also weakens the bond.

indigo is quite water soluble, so the parts that have been weakened by wear will fade faster. denim heads do the "wash every six months" thing w/ the idea that parts that get a lot of wear (like around the knees and pockets) will develop cool creasing patterns as they fade.

the problem with that thinking is that if you're not actually moving around a ton in your jeans, the effect of the wear will be minimized. i've seen great results from jacob's method and i've seen pretty weak ones. it seems to have to do w/ a lot of variables ... i've seen people beat the fuck out of their jeans and not wash for a year and get terrible fades because whatever they did put wear much more evenly on the jeans. in my case, i had jeans that i wore dancing for a long time and rarely washed and they didn't turn out so good because i think sweating through the jeans kinda put wear on the entire fabric.

on the other hand my gf has some crappy j crew dark denim jeans that got great fades, but that has to do w/ the fact that she wears them ass-tight and spends a lot of time kneeling to help middle school students and running around after them.

so yeah, long story short is ... i don't know.

ah it's like jeans fashion science/religion or something
i'm just like to have found a pair of jeans that look cool, hold their shape and don't flatten my ass

i suppose you will not be too surprised to learn that there are big forums pretty much devoted to your jeans and how often to wash them

TBH though despite all the hoopla about fading and whatnot, the reasons not to wash your jeans often are:

1) as long as you're not pooping your pants, pants develop odors much more slowly than shirts, and jeans in general are a pretty loose breathable cotton weave so that helps w/ odor too.

2) jeans are rugged wear so they tend to actually look better when they're more beat up than when they're clean and pressed

3) if you like having jeans dark it will keep them dark much longer

like i said i think dark jeans are overexposed and i'm getting more and more into natural shades of jeans

so like, this is what denim heads are trying to do

but what i'm saying is i think as much fun as it is trying to get your jeans to look like that, i'd rather have something more natural like this (that's what i mean by mom jeans color)

Yeah unless you have denim that is dyed with natural indigo the no washing is sort of pointless, I think. The reason I don't wash mine is like valid said, to get the creases and wear before the bottom legs start fading as well. But really I love my jeans just as much before the creases start setting in, I sort of like the process. I've never tried Nudie or many of the designer jeans that say they are raw denim because I don't believe them. My favorites were a pair of dead stock Big E's I used to own that I think we're from the 50's. I bought them in the early 90's before the denim craze came around to the states. Wish I hadn't sold them. I also had a pair of Evisu that I washed and dried and eventually they looked awful, I guess like Mom jeans, so I've never dried my jeans now and rarely wash them.

forgot the h in your name, sorry

all good

definitely i would machine-dry my jeans though, that is a good way to destroy them

would not

Man, people are super serious about jeans! I wear them more than any other item of clothing so it's time to invest instead of just repeatedly buying $50 once they inevitably start to sag and lighten too much. So I guess you'd recommend buying them on the tight side?

My friend who got me into jeans in the 90's even buys vintage hand soap and using a wash board on his really expensive vintage Levis and other japanese jeans. There was a line of replica Levis in the early 2000's that I really liked. I don't really keep up with jeans like I used to but they lasted longer than any other denim I had. The problem I always have is the holes that form on the but near the back pocket or a hole in the pocket from my wallet. If the denim is very thick like real raw denim or old Levis this rarely happens.

If you're buying 100% cotton jeans that aren't pre-shrunk you want to buy them tight otherwise they will stretch out and not have a nice form a year from now. even slightly shrunk raw denim with loosen up after wearing.

I hang all my clothes to dry as it is
Ive been wearing dark jeans since the 90s and I'm not gonna change now dammit

If I were buying $400 jeans i'd buy the special soap too

e if you like how a pair of jeans fits, buy one size smaller in the waist because it'll stretch an inch in the waist

if one size smaller is too tight anywhere but the waist you need a different cut (otherwise even at the bigger size it's going to end up disproportionate - you will either have comfortable waist and too tight everything else or baggy waist and everything else ok)

if they're stretch blend (not 100 percent) they won't really stretch so just buy your size

actually jacob i think you're off there

unwashed unshrunk jeans (unsanforized) are "shrink to fit" so you buy one or two sizes bigger and then rinse because they'll shrink an inch or more

then as you wear them, they stretch and you when they're too stretched you wash again.

Doesn't it depend or whether you washed jeans in hot or cold water? The more I think about this the more confused I'm becoming. I think I was off.

no, the fibers contract when they dry. hot water will shrink fabrics if it's as hot as the air in your dryer but in general i don't think that's true for most washers (even on hot)

like boiled wool is shrunk but it's literally boiled for hours.

evaporation also shrinks jeans, which is why they'll shrink even if they dry on a line, but the faster you set them the more they'll shrink.

tbh though i don't think clothing shrinkage is well understood at the molecular level

er faster you dry them

like i keep reading stuff like this

Moving from one state to another requires crossing an energy barrier. It even takes energy to get back to the lowest-energy, most disordered state. Hot temperatures in laundering give the fibers the energy that allows them to change state so that the long polymer chains scroll back up again.

which is basically the same as saying "HEAT MAKES IT GO"

wow just wow at jeans physics discussions

eh call it textile science

no, too boring

ok then call it jeanetics

My jeans always wind up needing a belt after a while, even if they fit nicely elsewhere. All I want is a nice slim pair of jeans that will fit in the waist :-(

belts are part of wearing pants imo

Who doesn't wear a belt??

(sometimes me)

belts are def part of wearing jeans and in fact early jeans were designed to be worn with suspenders

I bought this belt almost 15 years ago and I still wear it almost everyday, one of the best investments I've made. Nothing hardly last 15 years.

Haha, me! I never wear a belt! Because where my jeans go to is not my waist, and my hips are too padded to hold things up unless they scrunched me way in.

Maybe one of those striped elastic ones with the nesting infinity-symbol buckles, you know like from jr high.

sorry now that i wrote that i realize it's definitely a part of guy jeans but since girl jeans are cut different i don't think you need a belt

It's okay, I was responding to rrrobyn, really.

i think it really depends on what shirt you're wearing. and what kind of pants/jeans. tucking in or not tucking in. high-waisted or low-waisted. will belt make a weird line in yr shirt or what. i have different belts for different purposes. i do know that a lot of women don't wear belts though. but i just feel it pulls the look together. even if the belt is worn outside, as an accessory rather than a utilitarian device.

it's a utilitarian device for making my head spin

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_5ukY6Ag3teQ/Taew9ecsm-I/AAAAAAAABic/q7ck9iy8mxU/5620846592_12e21962d7_o.jpg

hott

http://image.tianjimedia.com/uploadImages/2011/167/FIJ37EQV2V45_re_4df8137a8159c_500.jpg

super hott

(the style in general, not those particular girls / outfits)

the outfit on top is pretty sweet but that shoulderless shirt has got to go, and i'm not gonna get into the hemline / jeans clash, the played out sunglasses, the hair or the facial expressions. i do want to ask why she's carrying around a leather sofa pillow.

it is surprisingly hard to find pictures of people pulling that look of well though which surprises me because i feel like a lot of people i know irl have been successful w/ it

i guess this pic of reese is the closest i could find though she's not wearing jeans

http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl1/0/3987/22_2008/Reese-Witherspoon-3.preview.jpg

Re: belts being de rigueur for wearing jeans - are there any stylish stretch-band jeans? Or are stretch-band waists hopelessly mom-jeans/dad-jeans?

(also, TS: the comfort of not having an inflexible leather belt sticking into your back or stomach vs. a belt's lack of constant squeezing of your thigh)

What happened to the shoulders on that girl's shirt, is that a thing?

I need new jeans! I'm thinking of trying shrink-to-fit 501's, but I have rly skinny legs. Will it look like I'm swimming in them? Does anyone have tips on shrinking them?

yow what the hell is going on with the outfit of the second girl i posted? i didn't look too closely at that one. still like the first outfit.

you have two options stevie: you can get spendy and buy the 1947 501s which are slim fit or you can forego shrink to fit and just get 511s. you might be tempted to buy your regular size and shrink those but you'll get something awkward that won't be as flattering as buying a slim cut in the first place.

yeah i think the thing with 501s is even when you're done shrinking them, they're not going to be skinny jeans

if you look around then 501xx can be had for v cheap (sub 50$ on amazon, even less if you get lucky with a sale), so it's not the end of the world if you think they look a bit mom jeans in the end. i am old and i have a big bum, so i like 501xx.

Yeah, even spending like $40 on jeans is a lot of money for me right now. I'm past the phase of wearing, like, crustpunk-skinny but the fact that I've got chicken legs and nonexistent thighs/butt means that normal sized jeans look baggy on me.

http://us.levi.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4101270&&cp=3146842.3146854.3691990&fbn=4101270|null|null

Ya I've been wearing those for like 6 years; ppl keep telling me how great 501's are but I think all of these ppl have more substantial lower halves than I do. I do like 511's quite a bit.

opinons on steven alan jeans

I have been unsuccessfully jeans shopping myself. All I can say is that it was a shitty enough endeavor when I had $$$ to spend; now that I'm on a tight budget, it is BEYOND SHITTY.

Got a pair of madewells rail straight in dark blue wash on sale; not terrible but not great--stretched out quite a bit (2% elastane) and gapes at the waist.

Gonna try Levi's "Bold Curve" straights when I hit up a Levi's outlet.

Oh and a washing question: if a jean has stretch (which seems unavoidable in women's jeans these days), is washing good or bad? I'd like to get them tightened up again. . .

temporary solution (washing) causes a permanent problem (sagging) ime