Denim is a complicated thing. It is, definitively, the most difficult piece of clothing to shop for. So many different types of denim, styles, fit, and way too many imposters pretending to sell high-quality jeans that actually fall apart/shrink to oblivion after a few wears or washes.
Jeans share the same soul and attitude as music. The inspiration springs from the same dreams. Besides denim, only leather has the ability to age so beautifully formed by its user into a second skin.
We’ve been on the hunt for a really great pair for a very, very long time. Finally we discovered Nudie Jeans—a brand dedicated solely to creating high-quality, responsibly sourced, long lasting, well-fitting jeans for men.
Nudie was born out of the common despair felt when a pair of jeans is retired, and the feeling that it will be years before you finally find another pair of pants that can accompany you from a business lunch to a night out and never fail you. It sounds weird, but you know that feeling. Like they are somehow a close friend.
The brand has bottled those emotions into a sustainable denim line and focuses on pants that last—as opposed to some of the gimmicky companies out there that depend on your great-fitting jeans to fall apart in the seat within months so you are forced to buy another pair for the upcoming season.
Specifically, Nudie focuses on dry denim. Nothing beats the smell of a new pair of dry jeans. Literally, it’s the smell of craftsmanship. At every stage, from the harvesting of the cotton, through to the indigo dyeing and the weaving, down to the sewing, men and women have used their hands to create Nudie jeans.
This is an important step of being a Nudie jean wearing. With great denim comes great responsibility, and when you slip into a new pair of drys, another kind of craftsmanship begins – the breaking-in. For some people, breaking in jeans is a sport. And for all of us, it’s definitely a challenge.
Breaking in a pair of Nudie dry jeans is a journey lasting six months. Don’t let the time frame scare you. Patience is absolutely a virtue here. Your jeans live your lifestyle. The longer you wear them, the more character and attitude they get.
The outcome depends on how you travel. Sitting around in the office won’t grace the denim as much as if used while working on your Triumph. Regardless of your lifestyle, your jeans become a log of the months gone by—and we all know the start of a great story begins with a ketchup (or blood, depending on the audience) stain.
We’ve done the dirty work for you, wearing our Nudie’s day in and day out everywhere from NYC to hiking in the ‘daks. What starts as a great fit develops into a second skin, a piece of fabric that does not disintegrate into a baggy pair of ‘I don’t care’ denim a la 1992 but rather keeps its shape (and its scent).
It’s a smell that could most probably raise the dead….but it’s most definitely the smell of a winner.
Of course, you can wash them eventually and they bounce back to life pretty quickly, with a much quicker wear-in time with each wash. Alas, no jeans last forever, but these just might be the centenarians of the denim world.
