The Jeans
The Jeans
Shuttle looms in Okayama, a family sewing room five generations deep, and an inseam that is long on purpose.
A pair of jeans is the most examined thing anybody owns. People look at the stitching, the hardware, the color, the fade, the hem, for years. So there is nowhere to hide on a pair of jeans, and that is exactly why they are worth making properly.
The Cloth
Our denim is selvedge, exclusively. It is woven for us on shuttle looms in Okayama, Japan, and it sits in the 13oz range across the line.
A shuttle loom carries the weft across on a wooden shuttle and turns it back on itself at the edge, which is what makes the self finished selvedge edge. It runs slow and it runs narrow, and the cloth that comes off it has irregularity in it that a modern loom removes on purpose.
The Vintage jeans are 13oz botanical indigo, rope dyed organic cotton. The CHARCOAL ONE runs 13.6oz. The Double Front sits at 13.5oz.
Thirteen ounces is a choice. It is the weight where a pair breaks in across a season rather than a decade, and it still creases hard enough to give sharp lines.
The Sewing Room
They are cut and sewn in Okayama, in a family sewing room that has been running for more than five generations.
Triple needle yoke and rise. Three rows of stitching through the seat, which is the seam that carries the most load on any pair of pants. Black Bear Brand YKK donut button. Brass zipper fly. Horween horsehide patch. Sewn in Black Bear Brand Quality Outdoor Clothing label, which the original company used more than a century ago.
The Inseam
Every men's jean and every men's corduroy in the line has the same inseam, and it is long on purpose.
How a pant sits on a person is personal. It is style, and it is theirs. So the pants are made long and each person does their own thing with them. I roll mine. Other people have theirs hemmed and wear them clean at the boot.
If you do have them hemmed, do it in person with a professional, and do it after they have been washed and cared for the way you intend to keep caring for them. Cloth moves. Hem it once it has finished moving.
What Happens Next
Indigo binds to the outside of a cotton fiber and leaves the core white. That is the entire reason denim fades where a body creases it, and the reason a pair at year five carries a record of five years of one specific person moving around.
There is nothing else in a wardrobe that does that. A jacket ages. A jean tells the truth.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the Vintage BLACK BEAR BRAND Jeans
Related Reading
Made in Seattle, Made in Japan