Nudie Even Steven

My friend David has been wearing a pair of Nudie's new Even Steven jeans for the last four months. He's in Nudie's own contest and I think he has a good chance of winning.

In my opinion the denim used in the Even Steven Dry is the best looking denim that Nudie has, even better than their selvedge denim because of the vertical fading, but it's not very heavy, only 12-12.5oz or so. They don't hold up all that well, but bear in mind that David wears his jeans quite hard, too. The color isn't that deep either, but still, it's a pretty nice pair of jeans.

Here's what David has to say about his jeans:

I've been using my Stevens since November 16th with the exception of about a week. They've gotten wet from below the knee down. That happened when I got into a speedboat that was gonna take us from the island of Koh Maak to the smaller island Koh Wai.

I'm a little dissapointed with the quality of these jeans, mostly because of how quickly the crotch got busted. Of course its not a really heavy denim and it's nice to get such results in such a short period of time but still I'd rather get really deep whiskers and honeycombs over a longer period of time than have a pair of jeans that aren't coloured deep enough.

They've had to put up with the mildest winter ever in Stockholm, many long walks along the beaches of Thailand, about an hour of elephant trekking in the djungle of Koh Chang, exploring the djungle of Koh Wai by foot, a motorbike ride around Koh Maak (about half of the island's roads are paved, the rest is sand and dry mud, it's really dusty) , many long walks along the heavy traffic in Bangkok and of my everyday sweat and body. I passed out in these jeans about five times after a few really wet nights...

So, good times roll by..

I had been eyeing the Flat Head 3003XX for a while already when word came of the Levi's lawsuit, and it gave me a pretty good reason to finally buy them.
I'm sure they will continue making the 3003xx, but not with the painted arcuate nor with the red tab, both of which are essential details in my opinion.

The 3003XX is The Flat Head's World War 2 model, which is the reason why the arcuates are painted. During the war, cotton and copper was scarce and thus the War Production Board decided that Levi's should cease putting their arcuate stitching on the backpockets, as it was a "wasteful use of cotton".
The cinch back and the rivets on the coinpocket disappeared because of the same reason.

The cut is straight with a high rise, and slightly on the loose side. It depends on how you size them though, I chose a small size, which obviously makes the jeans slimmer.
The hip is much straighter than on Levi's own 1944 reproduction, which means the bulge is smaller. Personally, I quite like this, but it also takes away some feel of authenticity.

The denim used in the 3003 series is really dark, because the yarn has been dipped 24(a very high number in this context) times in the indigo solution.
It also has a distinct vertical fade like the Eternal 811.









I like these jeans a lot, it will be a long time 'til I can start to really wear them though.

Fienden

The small Swedish brand Fienden, known for their tees with "unusual" prints, released their first pair of jeans yesterday and of course I went to check them out.
They're made from ~13.5 oz black selvedge denim, in a cut that resembles Julian Red's Detroit, except the rise is lower, or Samurai's S5000, except these taper from the knee down.
They actually look a lot like my S5000BKs - the silhouette, the fitted seat and the tone of the cow leather patch. Ironically, this is also something that could keep me from buying them, as I can't afford/justify buying a pair of jeans that looks so much like the ones I already have.

The only thing I didn't like about these jeans was the wide hem, but you could always have it redone to a smaller width. You shouldn't let this small detail turn you away from them though, as these are some of the nicest black jeans available in Sweden, and definitely the coolest.

I'm not yet sure which stores will carry these jeans, but the usual stockists in Stockholm are Weekday, Boutiqe Sportif and Tjallamalla. International orders, www.fienden.se



Calle, Max and Christian of Fienden.

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