As I was folding and putting away laundry on the weekend, it occurred to me that we have something like 700 pairs of jeans in this house. At least three or four of them are mine. One of them, a pair of Levi's 504s, I hate so much I just decided to drop it in a charity bin the next time I see one. They're weird, those 504s. They seem to be an inch thinner at the hip than they are on the arse, if that makes any sense. Whatever. I'm getting rid of them.
I'd like a pair of jeans that fit me well. I've had some in the past that wore like a second skin. The annoying thing is you can't pay for that serendipity. I once had a $30 pair from Uniqlo that was perfect. Unfortunately, I wore them so much they eventually fell apart because, you know, $30 pair of jeans. But when I went back to try and replace them? Gone. Replaced by a new season's fashion.
I do have one pair that fits me pretty well, an old set of grey jeans from Hugo Boss. I bought them years ago after dropping a lot of weight. Weirdly enough, they still fit me even though I'm about three or four kilos heavier now. I don't know what I'll do once I finally wear the arse out of them because, as I may have mentioned, we have about 700-800 pairs of jeans in this house, and I'd really prefer not to add to that denim mountain.
Even buying the same goddamn style the next year doesn't guarantee they fit. I was in New York in 2018 and upon the advice of a friend tried on Levis in the hope they would fit my womanly curves, since I am cursed with a short waist, long legs, and "childbearing hips", which means finding pants, never mind jeans, that go over my hips but also fit my waist can be a challenge. I found them, dear Cheeseburgerers, in Macy's, and bought 5 pairs. Huzzah!
In the intervening years since that trip I found Levis in Australia stocking the exact same style, and having worn several pairs to paper thin ribbons I checked that I was ordering the correct style, and bought 5 more pairs. The new ones seemed a different fabric, thinner, less substantial, than the New York originals, and while they fit, the fit just seemed that little bit different. They don't sit on my waist quite the same, which requires me, after standing up, to haul my jeans back up to my waist level, so they're not hanging off my hips weirdly, exacerbating my muffin top and putting the world at risk of plumber's crack were I to bend over.
My grief and disappointment is eclipsed only by my regret of foolishly wearing those initial perfect jeans every day as if there were an endless supply of them and I didn't need to husband them as the rare and precious resource they turned out to be.
this is where you need a pattern maker in your life. I was lucky and happened to shack up with someone who became just that. She worked for Cue in Sydney and the stories she told! Hooboy. The designer would go overseas draw something on a napkin they saw around the place and then tell the pattern makers to make it real.
Yeah - it was a very skilled job being able to understand the measurements and fit required in a 2D space to go to a 3D reality (and then being told how the company wanted it to actually fit - they usually had fit models that may or may not have resembled the usual body type out there). When clothes sold out or they had to do several runs because they were popular they would throw a bonus the patternmakers way and my partner seemed to get one more often than not (although the standard pay was crap and the hours long and stressful). But its something that has helped immensely at home.
What you need to do is buy a pair when there's a two for one special, and buy two exactly the same. It saves time trying on more than one thing, and it will drive your wife nuts.
Of course, that only solves the new season problem, not the denim mountain problem, but I am just one man who can't be expected to fix everything.
Just the other day i was reading about these ferals who dont wash their clothes. Did you post it here or was it somewhere else i saw it? The no-wash-jean movement:
In the 21st century, with access to a long history of working out the best way to cloth our naked apes, we still not only not seem to fail to develop an optimal method, but we seem to devote an inordinate amount of resources to make it harder, more wasteful and still leave us unsatisfied.
why is that?
personally I blame capitalism, but that is such a catch all as saying Newtonian physics governs pool but it doesn't help me sink the yellow in the corner pocket.
I kid you not: I skimmed a technical paper, in a top-line technical (signal processing) journal, over the weekend: "A Survey of Artificial Intelligence in Fashion" where the three branches of "Fashion Research" were covered: Fashion analysis (trends and popularity prediction), Fashion Recommendation (yes, just like Netflix, Twitter and Google), and Fashion Synthesis (make-up transfer and virtual try-on).
So once John has his Vision Pro set, he won't need to actually wear jeans at all: he can have them virtuald onto his lower-half (unless he goes into that weird Zuckerbergian cartoon-totalitarian state that doesn't believe in lower-halves).
Even buying the same goddamn style the next year doesn't guarantee they fit. I was in New York in 2018 and upon the advice of a friend tried on Levis in the hope they would fit my womanly curves, since I am cursed with a short waist, long legs, and "childbearing hips", which means finding pants, never mind jeans, that go over my hips but also fit my waist can be a challenge. I found them, dear Cheeseburgerers, in Macy's, and bought 5 pairs. Huzzah!
In the intervening years since that trip I found Levis in Australia stocking the exact same style, and having worn several pairs to paper thin ribbons I checked that I was ordering the correct style, and bought 5 more pairs. The new ones seemed a different fabric, thinner, less substantial, than the New York originals, and while they fit, the fit just seemed that little bit different. They don't sit on my waist quite the same, which requires me, after standing up, to haul my jeans back up to my waist level, so they're not hanging off my hips weirdly, exacerbating my muffin top and putting the world at risk of plumber's crack were I to bend over.
My grief and disappointment is eclipsed only by my regret of foolishly wearing those initial perfect jeans every day as if there were an endless supply of them and I didn't need to husband them as the rare and precious resource they turned out to be.
this is where you need a pattern maker in your life. I was lucky and happened to shack up with someone who became just that. She worked for Cue in Sydney and the stories she told! Hooboy. The designer would go overseas draw something on a napkin they saw around the place and then tell the pattern makers to make it real.
Wow! I feel for the poor pattern makers. How the hell are they supposed to make a garment to fit an actual, you know, 3D human being?
Yeah - it was a very skilled job being able to understand the measurements and fit required in a 2D space to go to a 3D reality (and then being told how the company wanted it to actually fit - they usually had fit models that may or may not have resembled the usual body type out there). When clothes sold out or they had to do several runs because they were popular they would throw a bonus the patternmakers way and my partner seemed to get one more often than not (although the standard pay was crap and the hours long and stressful). But its something that has helped immensely at home.
An incredible privilege to have a pattern maker in your life.
What you need to do is buy a pair when there's a two for one special, and buy two exactly the same. It saves time trying on more than one thing, and it will drive your wife nuts.
Of course, that only solves the new season problem, not the denim mountain problem, but I am just one man who can't be expected to fix everything.
Just the other day i was reading about these ferals who dont wash their clothes. Did you post it here or was it somewhere else i saw it? The no-wash-jean movement:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230529-the-people-who-dont-wash-their-clothes
*shudder*
In the 21st century, with access to a long history of working out the best way to cloth our naked apes, we still not only not seem to fail to develop an optimal method, but we seem to devote an inordinate amount of resources to make it harder, more wasteful and still leave us unsatisfied.
why is that?
personally I blame capitalism, but that is such a catch all as saying Newtonian physics governs pool but it doesn't help me sink the yellow in the corner pocket.
I kid you not: I skimmed a technical paper, in a top-line technical (signal processing) journal, over the weekend: "A Survey of Artificial Intelligence in Fashion" where the three branches of "Fashion Research" were covered: Fashion analysis (trends and popularity prediction), Fashion Recommendation (yes, just like Netflix, Twitter and Google), and Fashion Synthesis (make-up transfer and virtual try-on).
So once John has his Vision Pro set, he won't need to actually wear jeans at all: he can have them virtuald onto his lower-half (unless he goes into that weird Zuckerbergian cartoon-totalitarian state that doesn't believe in lower-halves).
That would seem to be a lot of resources to devote to such a singular challenge.
This is my dream.