After the auspicious first month with Chicken, the Dirty Dozen + 1 project jeans have been passed to Almondcrush in a New York City ceremony. The jeans saw some fierce action and experienced pole dancing, excessive drinking, thrills and spills, and some special tender moments.
Check out all the Dirty Dozen + 1 coverage on the Evisu blog.
The jeans are being painted by “Mr Kobayashi Evisu No1 Paint Writer!” in the Evisu store in Osaka, Japan. Mr Kobayashi teaches the other shop staff to paint and is considered Yamane’s most trusted painter and Evisu maniac. The jeans that are being painted are Deluxe prototypes for SS08 and were painted as a special souvenir. The purple colour paint is “Osaka Purple” which they only paint in Osaka shops (Tokyo has navy blue, and other stores have unique colors), and the characters on the right pocket say Osaka. The video is better than watching paint dry!
Tags: denim, handpainting, Jeans, kamome, kobayashi, osaka, painting, seagull&uotThese Evisu Lot 2001 No. 2 jeans are from our friend Deus in Sweden. Worn from a raw state, the indigo has faded and threads have broken to capture the imprint of their wearer. The charm of raw denim lies in its potential: the fabric fading and twisting to a unique and unpredictable state. As time goes on, a pair of raw jeans will continue to transform and fade, telling an original story molded by the essence of its wearer. What follows is Deus’s account of what he and his jeans have been through.
I got the jeans back in 2005 in the middle of June. They were sent to me from a good friend in Asia, and I started wearing them every day. I did not soak or wash them for about nine months. After a while the jeans got really dirty and smelly as I wore them both at work and at home. So I gave them a cold soak inside out, with a small amount of soap. I did not want to ruin the nice dirty looking color that I really love.
I continued to wear them for about six months after the first soak before I gave them the next one. Over this period, the jeans were a bit repaired, as they started to get small holes from hard wear in certain areas. I patched them up and soaked them, this time in hot water with the jeans on me but only with normal soap, no washing powder. I tried to shrink them back a bit in size, as they had stretched a lot from the hard wearing at work, and they did shrink a bit.
In the winter of 2007 I wore the jeans on a three-month travel to Thailand, where they got really hard wear from the sand, dirt and traveling lifestyle. While I was there, the jeans started to get two really brittle areas on the lap, close to crotch area. They got repaired in the crotch at my friend’s denim store, and i patched up the lap when i got back home to Stockholm.
I gave them the last soak in April 2007 in hot water with a small amount of soap.
I had so many new jeans that i wanted to start wearing, so these lovely jeans got a bit of a retirement. They deserved it.I now only use them at special occasions, or at home. Though that is only because I want to start wearing-in my new jeans. They could, however, live for a couple more years of wearing.
They have been a good friend and treated like a family member, and I would never sell or part with them.
- Deus
Evisu European Edition (EEE) is our fashion led men’s and women’s collection that is made with 100% Italian denim and washes that compliments our vintage inspired Heritage line. EEE is distinguished through innovative and trend led styles, finishes and washes that are seasonally updated. One of our partners in EEE is Martilli; Italy’s most famous denim laundry.
Founded by Luigi Martelli over fifty years ago, this Italian workshop has steadily earned its reputation as home to some of the world’s finest denim distressing, constantly forging new ground with inventive washes, wear marks and patterns. Just as Evisu works to offer a variety of the most diverse textures, cuts, and designs, the Martelli Group has been devoted for more than half a century to pioneering new washing techniques and technology. Since each pair is subject to an individual and intensive creation process—a gamut of washing, drying, dying, baking, and more—no two pairs turn out quite alike.
Below are a few shots of some EEE in progress on-site at Martelli’s workshop. The photographs are courtesy of Alesandro Zuek, a close friend of the Evisu family. Enjoy!
One of our favorite books in the office is Denim Design Lab by Brian Robbins. It offers an extensive look at the beauty of vintage denim including details on denim as a fabric, its history, the development of the jean and the detailed manufacturing process. Robbins includes a large selection of photographs displaying rare and vintage denim, each pair being absolutely unique.
Evisu is proud to be the only modern denim brand featured in Robbins’ book, and he credits our brand as as a major factor in the revival of quality denim. Alongside vintage Levi 501’s, Lee and Wranglers from the 1950s, Evisu jeans from 1993 and 1998 make their way into the book’s vintage tribute. There are also a few pages of text devoted to Evisu, which have been reproduced below.
Bringing back the details ….
While the US denim market in general continued to grow and prosper through the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, changes largely precipitated by improving manufacturing methods and machinery had an unintended but profound impact on a then small group of denim purists. The move from traditional shuttle looms to larger, more efficient looms used in the manufacturing of denim fabric resulted in not only the demise of the then ubiquitous “selvage,” but denim with much more consistent (read “bland”) surface character.
While these and other more subtle changes increased profitability for manufactures, they also often resulted in denim that lacked the surface imperfections, variations and “slubs” typical in vintage denim; the look and “feel” of jeans had changed. During this time, while most Americans were “consuming” denim, many Japanese were scouring the countryside, flea-markets, swap meets and garage sales “collecting” denim. Having an eye for detail and a nostalgia for all things truly American, these collectors were buying up as much pre-1985 vintage Levi’s, Lee’s and Wrangler’s they could find.
It is not surprising, then, that it would be a detail conscious Japanese “denim fanatic” that would help revive the materials and manufacturing methods used to produce vintage denim.
After years of research and planning, the former tailor of Osaka, Japan, Hidehiko Yamane, founded the now famous cult brand “Evisu” in 1991. Evisu (also written as Evis or Ebisu), the Japanese god of money who is often depicted with a fish and fishing rod, was selected as the name of his new company as money and fishing were two of Yamane’s greatest passions.
After gathering some old shuttle looms and other necessary vintage machinery, Yamane-san went to work replicating the details found in both vintage denim jeans and fabric that he was no longer able to find in the retail market. Evisu’s initial production output was a mere 14 pairs a day. The detail-obsessed denim “maniacs,” as they are often called, were naturally drawn to Evisu’s vintage inspired denim, and the brand quickly became famous in Japan. The brand’s success in Japan slowly grew to other continents, and Evisu can be credited as a major factor in ushering in the revival of interest in vintage denim. Today, Evisu can be found in over a thousand of the world’s most exclusive retail establishments.
Stop by Denim Design Lab and pick up a copy of this denim book.
Also, this book is for sale on our International website.
Tags: DDL, denimFavored by one of Evisu’s famed designers is the prototype of an upcoming style that’s sure to draw attention at its premiere.
The jean, based on an original mining jean dug up in the Nevada desert, dates all the way back to the 1800s. This replicated style features single-stitch construction, denim pocket bags and our recognizable selvedge waistband. Our designer has been wearing the prototype for four consecutive months, and they have already begun to show unique signs of wear and distress which mirror those of the original jean.
Evisu was formally born in Osaka Japan in 1991, although the research and planning necessary to reproduce the perfect pair of vintage jeans had been going on for several years prior to this.
The founder of Evisu is Hidehiko Yamane. Yamane-san was trained as a tailor but his love for vintage jeans and his disappointment with the mass-produced modern versions led him firstly to the vintage clothing import business and then, revolutionary, to start putting together the elements required to reproduce vintage-style jeans.
The initial production line allowed about 14 pairs of jeans a day to be produced and each of them was lovingly hand-painted with the now famous seagull logo by Yamane-san himself. Evisu (also written Evis or Ebisu) is the name of the Japanese folk god of money who is usually portrayed with a fish and a fishing rod. His name was selected for the new venture as money and fishing are tow of Yamane-san’s five favorite things (the others being beer, women and golf - in no particular order).
Although initially Evisu was more a labour of love than a commercial venture, Evisu jeans captured the imagination of the detail-obsessed Japanese fashion crowd, spurring a revival of interest in vintage denim which has now spread around the world.
