Selvedge Jeans - A Guide to Its Characteristics and History
You may have heard people talk about selvedge when they talk about jeans, but what is it exactly? In Norwegian (and Swedish) the correct term is " jarekant ", meaning the edges of the weave, where you turn and weave back.
The hem edge is stronger than the rest of the fabric and does not unravel. While the hem edge must be cut with scissors, the rest of the fabric can usually be torn when dividing straight pieces of the weave.
The Use of Selvedge in History
Because of the way the woven cotton fabric was when it came on a roll from the loom, with selvedge at the edges, it was natural to take advantage of the property that this part of the weave does not unravel. Therefore, the pieces of fabric that were to be made into jeans were cut in such a way that the hem edge became the edges of the jeans, like the trouser legs. This eliminated the need to sew an overlock seam there to avoid unraveling.
That way, you used more of the fabric, less of it went to waste, and you saved time and sewing thread on an edge that didn't have to be sewn.
On the first Levi's jeans, the selvedge was white, and the denim fabric was woven at the Amoskeag Mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, England, United Kingdom. It was also white when Levi's switched from its supplier in England to the White Oak Cone Mill , which Levi's used until the company went bankrupt in 2017.
But eventually, more jeans manufacturers wanted denim from White Oak, and to know what was woven for which supplier, they added color codes to the hem. Levi's got red, while Lee had blue.
Modern Production
Traditional Weaving and Japanese Quality
Today, denim is woven on large looms, and most jeans are sewn without the classic selvedge. However, jeans made on vintage looms according to old traditions still have a jean edge. And there's something about the quality of the cotton, the weave, and the stitching in those jeans that makes it hard to go back to the old, flimsy jeans you get at the discount chains.
Why do all the good selvedge jeans come from Japan, you might wonder? It was the Americans who invented jeans, but they became very popular in Japan after American pop culture seriously took over Japan in the 50s.
In the late 60s, Americans began to realize that there was a lot of money in pop culture, and they started mass-producing jeans. While weaving machines became larger and cotton thread became thinner, the quality of American jeans slowly but surely declined. In Japan , however, quality was still important. They had a tradition of weaving beautiful kimonos, and did not want to compromise on quality. The Japanese continued to make traditional weaving machines, still weaving with thick thread and hems.
Today, the Japanese know the most about how to weave denim fabric, and they supply raw denim and selvedge to the whole world.
Our jeans from Naked & Famous are woven in Japan and sewn in Canada.
