any way to tighten up dry denim

[nmulax]

I picked up a pair of Levi's Capital E dry denim Strummer's a few weeks ago, and I love them so far. It's my first pair of raw jeans and I get excited after each wear to see any new honeycombing and wear. I just wish I didn't work in a business environment... because of that, I'm limited to wearing them on the weekends.

I had two questions about caring for dry denim though.

1. What do you guys do when it's raining? In Detroit we've had rain for the past 6-7 days straight, and I've been hesitant to wear my new jeans for fear of the rain somehow causing them to bleed in a wierd way, or just mess them up. Should I be concerned with getting them wet; or is the more wear the better?

2. The waist has stretched a bit, nothing a belt doesn't fix; but the knees have started to bubble out. Is there anyway to tighten them up a bit (throw them in the dryer?) without loseing their dry denim qualities?

 

[Saucemaster]

Originally Posted by nmulax

I picked up a pair of Levi's Capital E dry denim Strummer's a few weeks ago, and I love them so far. It's my first pair of raw jeans and I get excited after each wear to see any new honeycombing and wear. I just wish I didn't work in a business environment... because of that, I'm limited to wearing them on the weekends.

I had two questions about caring for dry denim though.

1. What do you guys do when it's raining? In Detroit we've had rain for the past 6-7 days straight, and I've been hesitant to wear my new jeans for fear of the rain somehow causing them to bleed in a wierd way, or just mess them up. Should I be concerned with getting them wet; or is the more wear the better?

2. The waist has stretched a bit, nothing a belt doesn't fix; but the knees have started to bubble out. Is there anyway to tighten them up a bit (throw them in the dryer?) without loseing their dry denim qualities?

1) Don't worry about rain. Just treat your jeans as normal. Actually, rain accelerates the wear a bit--I get kind of secretly excited when I know I'm going to be walking home from work in the rain (I can wear my jeans to work daily).

2) Unfortunately... not really. Brian SD had a trick where he'd throw his jeans in the dryer for a while to shrink them back down, but IIRC that only really works after they've been washed once. The knee stretching thing is kind of annoying, but there's really nothing for it. I ended up washing my APC New Standards before I had originally planned just to get the knee stretching under control, and while it's not so bad after a wash, it's still a factor. It's just one of those things that's going to happen unless you wash frequently.

 

[Arethusa]

Knee stretching is just part of wearing jeans. Don't worry about it. Waist stretching, on the other hand, can be a complete pain **********. Depending on the fabric, you can shrink them back down in the dryer or through washing, but as noted, they need to be washed to do that. Or you can do the Superfuture thing and buy eighteen sizes too small. I guess you could also take them to a tailor and have some stiff cotton twill sewn into the waistband to minimize stretching.

 

[Metal Circus]

What if, before wearing your jeans, you had the knees taken in? It'd probably make it really uncomfortable at first, but as a long-term solution...

 

[Arethusa]

They'll just stretch out more to compensate and you'll end up with weaker fabric in that area as a result. Not to mention very uncomfortable and likely weird looking jeans.

 

[j]

Originally Posted by Arethusa

Knee stretching is just part of wearing jeans. Don't worry about it. Waist stretching, on the other hand, can be a complete pain **********. Depending on the fabric, you can shrink them back down in the dryer or through washing, but as noted, they need to be washed to do that. Or you can do the Superfuture thing and buy eighteen sizes too small. I guess you could also take them to a tailor and have some stiff cotton twill sewn into the waistband to minimize stretching.
Man, if you wanted to be super anal retentive, this would be a great solution - you could temporarily sew in a non-stretchable lining in the waist and the knees or wherever you want until you were ready to wash them, then take it out...

Coming soon to a Japanese site near you.

 

[Brian SD]

Originally Posted by j

Man, if you wanted to be super anal retentive, this would be a great solution - you could temporarily sew in a non-stretchable lining in the waist and the knees or wherever you want until you were ready to wash them, then take it out...

Coming soon to a Japanese site near you.

Rag&Bone *kind of* does this already. The waistband is covered (on the inside of, course) with a soft, strechy cotton. I have a feeling it helps, as my R&Bs have barely stretched at all.

 

[beefcake]

Originally Posted by nmulax

Is there anyway to tighten them up a bit (throw them in the dryer?) without loseing their dry denim qualities?
For the record and to answer that question of yours; Yep, and it won't have them lose their dry denim qualities. Shoot!

 

[denimdestroyedmylife]

You can cold soak them to get them back in shape---they will still break in well.

I find that cuffing de-emphasizes knee-bulge.

 

[Brian SD]

I say embrace the knee bulge. After awhile it becomes knee sag, where the fabric just kind of flops over and sags down. It's inevitable, completely unavoidable and I think it looks quite nice.

 

[denimdestroyedmylife]

"Knee boobs"

 

[beefcake]

Originally Posted by denimdestroyedmylife

"Knee boobs"

Are you sure you're using the crack free starch?

 

[DGP]

Well, as women age, and, especially after child birth, become a bit, ehem, "looser" they often go to a plastic surgeon for some laser procedure that takes care of this. Maybe there is a way to laser dry jeans

?

 

[PunctualAlex]

Does anyone have any pictures of this knee stretching?
As for sewing a belt of fabric in there, you would have to match the thread very carefully to the jeans so as to not walk around with a band of thread around each knee. Beyond that, the wear from the thread would cause the jeans to fade unevenly around the holes and along the seam, which would mean that even after you've washed them and taken out the fabric, you would have pale wear marks dotting around your knee like some misguided tattoo for your jeans. Of course, this might work for the waist because that area is covered by a belt...
Would it be possible to get the same protection by superglueing some fabric to the inside of the jeans, or would the glue soak through and affect the outside of the denim? If it cemented the indigo in place, you would end up with two dark blue bands around the knees, and that would be even worse...

 

[j]

Originally Posted by PunctualAlex

Does anyone have any pictures of this knee stretching?
As for sewing a belt of fabric in there, you would have to match the thread very carefully to the jeans so as to not walk around with a band of thread around each knee. Beyond that, the wear from the thread would cause the jeans to fade unevenly around the holes and along the seam, which would mean that even after you've washed them and taken out the fabric, you would have pale wear marks dotting around your knee like some misguided tattoo for your jeans. Of course, this might work for the waist because that area is covered by a belt...
Would it be possible to get the same protection by superglueing some fabric to the inside of the jeans, or would the glue soak through and affect the outside of the denim? If it cemented the indigo in place, you would end up with two dark blue bands around the knees, and that would be even worse...
I was thinking of sewing the fabric only along the inseam and outseam. Though you're right, you could get a ridge if the fabric were heavy enough to print through.