DENIM GUIDEHow to wash and distress your jeans

the unsophisticated way

Back in the days

Blue jeans have been around since the 1800s, when they came about out of a need for a comfortable yet durable workwear for gold miners in California. Back in those days, the process of distressing jeans was a natural part of everyday life. Through different abrasion patterns, locations of wear and whiskering, stains, and creasing each pair of denim recorded the unique story of each and every wearer.

But let’s face it, most of us don’t work in gold mines anymore, even though we still want our jeans to somewhat look like we did. The process of recreating

those authentic looks is neither easy nor quick. The majority of work that goes into aging denim is done by hand and requires both knowledge, craftsmanship, and experimentation. Over the following pages you’ll find five tips on how to distress your jeans the unsophisticated way in order to make their story a little bit more interesting. If you don’t feel like doing it yourself, jump straight to page 12 and check out our Elvine no.1 jeans: Sophisticated jeans for unsophisticated behavior.

Back in the days

Blue jeans have been around since the 1800s, when they came about out of a need for a comfortable yet durable workwear for gold miners in California. Back in those days, the process of distressing jeans was a natural part of everyday life. Through different abrasion patterns, locations of wear and whiskering, stains, and creasing each pair of denim recorded the unique story of each and every wearer.

But let’s face it, most of us don’t work in gold mines anymore, even though we still want our jeans to somewhat look like we did. The process of recreating

those authentic looks is neither easy nor quick. The majority of work that goes into aging denim is done by hand and requires both knowledge, craftsmanship, and experimentation. Over the following pages you’ll find five tips on how to distress your jeans the unsophisticated way in order to make their story a little bit more interesting. If you don’t feel like doing it yourself, jump straight to page 12 and check out our Elvine no.1 jeans: Sophisticated jeans for unsophisticated behavior.

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1. Plan ahead

There is no right or wrong way to wash and distress your jeans. Let each pair evolve as a result of your personal creativity. With that said, we advise you plan ahead before you get medieval on your jeans.

2. Accelerate the aging process

When it comes to denim, it is not always advantageous

to look the youngest. Scrape or rub the surface of the

fabric in order to make the denim look worn and aged.

Rocks, stones, sand paper, or other tools can be used

in the process.

3. Use bleach

Bleach is a chemical used to make denim fade. If you don’t have any bleach at home, many hotels, motels, health clubs, and fitness centers have public pools containing chemical disinfectants such as chlorine bleach. Simply dip your jeans in the pool or even better, take a swim with your pants on.

4. Soften up

Before specialized denim laundry companies started using volcanic stone for stone washing garments, rocks, plastic, shoes, and just about every other material was used to wear down and soften denim during the laundry process. Why not try washing your jeans with a pair of rubber boots to soften them up?

5. Get creative

Getting a unique pair of jeans requires a certain

amount of inventiveness. Here’s an idea: Try twisting

and pulling your jeans through a traffic cone in order

to get the right tear marks.

If you don’t feel like doing all this yourself, turn the page and check out our Elvine no.1 jeans instead.

Our Blue Recycled jeans are made of 100% recycled cotton. The fabric is right Hand Twill (RHT) denim which can be recognized by the upward direction of the diagonal twill on the face of the fabric as it runs from lower left towards upper right. If that doesn’t make much sense to you, let’s just say it is known to have a flatter and smoother surface compared to other twill fabrics. To compensate, our Blue Recycled has received a resin a that gives a 3D-effect to the denim.

Denim: 100% recycled cotton, 13 oz, pure indigoWeave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

no.1 Blue Recycled

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no.1 Vintage Wash

Wearing your jeans to get a vintage look takes a lot of time, and distressing them yourself takes a lot of work. Why not make it easy for yourself and let us do it for you? Take our Vintage Wash as an example. They have been treated with nine different methods, such as organic enzyme washing which is a more environmen-tally sound way to stone wash jeans, leaving the finished jeans stronger than those broken down by traditional stone washing. So you don’t have to.

Denim: 100% cotton, 12 oz, deep indigoWeave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

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no.1 Heavy Vintage Wash

If you followed our tips and advice on the previous pages, you’ll end up with something like this. But you will have to scrape and rub the front and back to make the denim look worn, bleach them in the pool to make the denim fade, wash them with rubber boots to make the denim softer, twist and pull them through a traffic cone to get the right tear marks, and then you have to do it all over again a couple of times. Or you can choose to buy our Heavy Vintage Wash jeans.

Denim: 100% cotton, 12,5 ozWeave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

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no.1 Used Wash One of the exhausting treatments our Used Wash jeans have to go through before they can rest in a store close to you is called whiskering. Whiskers are pre-fabricated creases that create a broken-in and worn look in the crotch area and back of the knees. Some upset parents of teenagers have argued that these so-called whiskers draw the eye’s attention to the crotch area (and that the name whiskers refers to pussycats) when they actually just gives the appearance of aged denim.

Denim: 100% cotton, 12,25 oz, green indigo Weave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

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no.1 Black Simple Denim fabric dyeing is divided into two categories; indigo dyeing and sulfur dyeing. Indigo dyeing pro-duces traditional blue colors or shades similar to blue colors. Sulfur dyeing (also called color denim) is used to create specialty black and other colors, but also to im-prove the quality. Black Simple is our take on the classic black jeans, over-dyed and distressed to look like they have been worn for weeks. Dyeing denim is a dirty job, so let us put on the rubber gloves instead of you.

Denim: 100% cotton, 12,75 oz, Over-dyed black Weave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

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no.1 Heavy Grey

Our washed-out Heavy Grey jeans are made to look like black jeans worn everyday for several years. As it turns out, wearing the same pair of denim jeans nearly every day for a long period of time isn’t all that dirty after all. A study made by professor Rachel McQueen in Edmonton, Canada showed that the bacterial count of a 15-month worn and unwashed pair of jeans was almost exactly the same as a pair worn for only 13 days. But why wait that long to get the right look?

Denim: 100% cotton, 11 oz, semi greyWeave: 3/1 RHT

Sizes:Width: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Length: 32, 34

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Credits

We thank the gold miners in 19th century California for demanding stronger and more comfortable workwear. All photos by Olle Knutson Hjertén, except the photo on this page from the G.W. Starr Collection. This folder includes definitions of denim terms from the book Denim Design Lab by Brian Robbins.

Elvine ABJärntorget 2S–413 04 GothenburgSweden

Phone : +46 31 556 960Fax : +46 31 556 961Email : info@elvine.se

Export ManagerMattias EdenholmDirect: +46 31 857 448Cell: +46 73 370 35 80Email : mattias@elvine.se

www.elvine.se

ELVINE MÄND may not be known by a lot of people, but her legacy and name is

embroidered on the behinds and across the hearts of many. Elvine worked as a seam-

stress in Estonia during the Second World War. When the Russians invaded, Elvine

made a run for Estonia’s neighbour, Sweden.

In 1975, Elvine’s daughter gave birth to a boy named Daniel Mänd, who would

revive Elvine in a whole new way. Daniel grew up in the outskirts of Gothenburg,

and quickly became one with the streets and its graffiti culture. With the opening of

his own street wear store, Daniel realized what it was he and his friends weren’t able

to find in the clothing industry. He wanted to create something that came entirely

from him and Gothenburg’s unrefined street culture, but made in the tradition of his

grandmother.