Roy's Jeans & The Cone Mills Video - Straight & Narrow Fits
A couple of months ago at the end of January we took a trip to Greensboro (North Carolina) with Roy Slaper to experience the production process of a new denim that was designed from the ground up by Roy himself. We took Kellen Dengler, our videographer from NYC, with us to shoot the process, we felt it wasn't fair to keep it under wraps. At the oldest denim mill in the world, this is the story of Roy's new fabric.
This video was shot in 1080p High Definition, it's best viewed in full-screen HD mode with the volume turned way up.
Roy is back with his first denim jean release since 2011. This long overdue set of jeans is made up of a custom fabric from Cone Mills made exactly to Roy's specs. This is the first time in over three decades that Cone has produced an unsanforized fabric for anybody, and therefore we feel that this is history in the making.
The denim is a loomstate unsanforized indigo denim that clocks in at 14.5oz per square yard in it's raw state. The denim is made of American cotton and is 100% pure indigo dyed in the darkest shade Cone produces.
Technically, the construction of the denim.. the warp has multiple sized (engineered) slub yarns and the weft has large rough spun (non-engineered) yarn. It weighs 14.5 in loomstate and approximately 16.25oz after a hot water soak. Roy broke three of his key machines on this run and had to improve them to deal with the heavier denim.
The fabric hand is smooth and tight. Roy had Cone pack as many picks per inch (46 in 6.4 gauge yarn) as could be done without the loom blowing out and therefore achieved the tight weave he was after. There is a sound to the denim, after its been worn a few weeks - when you rustle it, that's somewhere between suede and oil cloth. This is tough fabric.
The look is streaky and it appears grey-!%% at first. After rinsing and a few weeks of wear, it starts to change character as the white hairs formed by the fill yarns wear off leaving the streakiness to mellow and the shade to become a more rich, classic indigo.
The jeans themselves come in two fits, both a slim and a straight leg. Both silhouettes are slightly modified from past iterations of Roy's straight and slim fits.
Never content with just "doing another run", Roy has improved and tweaked everything surrounding the production of these jeans. The stitching of the body is even finer and more accurate and we love the fully lined back pockets and coin pocket. The rear pocket hems now have a hand-done welt in them (slightly thicker than the last run), mimicking the vintage style belt-loops found on many of the best Japanese brands. Last but not least the back pockets have been slightly reduced in size from past versions.
Jeans from Roy don't come often and we can't keep them in stock as long as we'd like, so if you've been waiting for a pair, now is the time.
These jeans go on sale at all three Self Edge stores on Saturday March 24th at noon (local time). They'll also be available in our online store starting 9am (PDT) the same day. Check the product pages in our online store for more photos, measurements, and far far more specifications than you can possibly need for a pair of jeans.
Roy's Jeans at Self Edge Online
Roy Jean RS04 - Cone Project - Straight Leg
Roy Jean RN04 - Cone Project - Narrow Leg
