While in Japan at the end of 2013 we saw a denim that excited us more than nearly any other new denim we'd seen in well over a year.  It was at a meeting with Strike Gold at which they brought us a sample of the fabric to see; since that meeting we couldn't wait to get the jean into our stores.  It's been a long six month wait since then and we've finally got a small run of these jeans available at our stores.

With the new 5105 (slim straight) and 5109 (slim tapered) models Strike Gold have produced a 15oz unsanforized denim made of pure indigo warp threads and a light gray weft thread.  The denim is very interesting because they used a super short slub cotton for the weft threads. This is a cotton staple so short we believe it's shorter than the sugar cane fibers used in Sugar Cane's famed Okinawa and Hawaii jeans, except those use a slub fiber (sugar cane) in the warp and weft of the denim.  Using a cotton staple this short is tricky when producing a fabric that should be rugged and somewhat heavy in weight because the yarns need to be spun at a far slower pace and therefore increasing the risk of the shuttle yarn (aka, the weft thread) snapping far more often than it already does.  The slow spinning of the thread should not be confused with the tension or speed of a loom, spinning of yarns is a process which happens far before any loom is involved in making a fabric.  All this work results in a denim that looks like no denim we've seen before.  The process used gives the denim an extremely uneven texture, but not necessarily slubby looking.  Our best description is that at a 45 degree angle it can be compared closely to a vintage hand-woven Persian rug, but not so much that most people wouldn't be able to tell much of a difference outside of the deeper color.  The jean looks like an indigo colored denim but has a deeper blue hue from the weft threads peaking through the indigo warp threads.  It's a jean like this which reminds us that we haven't seen it all, yet.

Along with these two new jeans we've received two new brushed flannels, available in red or yellow.  If you're local to one of our four stores do yourself a favor and come by just to see this new denim in person.
Both jeans and flannels along with a restock of the 3105/3109 jeans and belts in both colors are available now at all Self Edge stores and in our online store.