Your Grandpa's Jeans: A Primer on Raw and Selvedge Denim

Your Grandpa's Jeans: A Primer on Raw and Selvedge Denim

While Denim Jeans have been a clothing staple for men since the 19th century, the jeans you`re probably wearing right now are a lot different from the denim jeans that your grandpa or even your dad wore.

Before the 1950s, most denim jeans were crafted from raw and selvedge denim that was made in the United States. But in the subsequent decades, as denim went from workwear to an everyday style staple, the way jeans were produced changed dramatically. With the implementation of cost cutting technologies and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to developing countries, the quality of your average pair was greatly reduced. Changes in consumer expectations altered the denim landscape as well; guys wanted to pick up pre-washed, pre-faded, pre-broken-in, and even pre-[ripped" jeans that [looked" like they`d been worn for years.

But about a decade ago, the pendulum began to swing back again. Men started pushing back against the low-quality, cookie-cutter, pre-faded jean monopoly. They wanted a quality pair of denim jeans and to break them in naturally. They wanted to pull on the kind of American-made dungarees their grandpas wore.

To give us the scoop on raw and selvedge denim, we talked to Josey Orr (fast fact: Josey was named after the protagonist in The Outlaw Josey Wales), co-founder of Dyer and Jenkins, an L.A.-based company that`s producing raw and selvedge denim right here in the United States.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I just hit up Josey for the inside dope on denim because he`s a cool young dude who makes awesome jeans, has an awesome beard, and knows his stuff.

To first understand raw and Selvedge Denim Jeans, it helps to know what those terms even mean.