Fading progress — Unique Garment “Rain drops” Jeans 1001T–6 months — 3 cold washes

You can check out my review of the pair when I just bought them here: https://michaelng2692.medium.com/unique-garment-rain-drop-jeans-1001t-denim-review-impression-texture-is-spiritual-not-8860f4b66233

Now I have reached 6 months and 3 cold washes of my Unique Garment “Rain Drops” jeans. So I should write up an update of the fading progress and my thoughts about it.

The pair in brand new condition.

Activities, washing and fade intention

I wear the jeans around 5 days a week, so I got approximately 130 wears. With COVID now, I do not do much activities outside, only working from home and walking around. So I do not expect anything high-contrast about the fading. I also intended to get this jeans faded in a clean, soft and blurry way.

About washing, I have washed them 3 times by machine, in cold water with no detergent or so. The first time is 3 months after the first soak. The second time is 2 months after that, and the third time is a month after.

Ok, so that is how I treated my jeans and below we are talking about the outcome.

Fit

The fit is tapered originally. After the first cold machine wash, it fits me pretty well with ample room in the top block and gentle tapering from knee down to hem. I can easily wear it with most of my footwears.

Now after the third cold machine wash, and around another 15 wears, the jeans fit me snuggly. And I think from this point forward, the fit of the jeans would not change too much. Usually I refer this as the “permanent” fit of the jeans.

Front — Single cuff — Snug top block — Fit thighs — Pretty tight calves

Back — Tapering starts at the knees down.

Side — You can see thighs are fit just right and both of the rises are quite short. Traintrack and legtwist are subtle but present here.

So, with this “permanent” fit, I find it’s ok with standing up and walking around. However, when I need to squat down or on my knees or even sit down, it limits my movement quite a lot. The most restricted parts are the calves and the back rise.

When choosing the size, I have taken the shrinkage into account and I only did cold machine washing but it shrunk further beyond my expectation after the first cold soak. Now a belt is a must if I do not want my pants to fall down or show my butt out LOL. With the calves, thanks to the long staple cotton, the fabric has a bit stretch in it so it is tight but not squeezing.

And one more thing is as the leg opening is smaller now, I found this fit would be suitable for sneakers or maybe derbies but not boots.

Fabric

The fabric after first cold soak.

The more I wear, the softer the fabric becomes. After around 45 wears, the warp side remains rugged and textured but the weft is smooth to touch. This fabric indeed is one of the most comfortable fabric I have ever tried on.

How the warp evolves over time?

Warp side after 1st cold machine wash (around 45 wears).

The indigo hue definitely got brighter and the streaks of slubs are vivid now. It has a lot of ups and downs, and also pretty hairy too. It is the most textured fabric among 13oz-14oz range I have. Very interesting!

After 2nd cold machine wash.

The indigo hue did not change much from the previous wash. I think because I did the second wash after the first one for only 30 wears. However, we can see some of the slubs are faded to white now. Unique Garment calls this denim “Rain Drops”, I call it meteor strikes. It looks like the meteors are falling down or a shower of shooting stars. A spectacular view.

And now, after around 130 wears and third cold machine wash, this is what I got.

Front

Back

The indigo hue now is reaching to my favourite shade, especially at the top block. I’ve got all the basic fadings such as whiskers, honey combs, waistband, ropes at hem, yoke, rivets on back pockets. Although they are not very contrast, I am happy with this since I have not done much moving or exercising. This denim is on the faster fading side of the spectrum.

Let’s take a closer look at the fabric.

On the right thigh.

Under the sunlight, we can see streaks of slubs in different sizes. We are seeing both showers and hail storm at the same time LOL. I have to say again the texture here is incredible.

Crotch area.

It may sound weird but I usually look at the crotch area to examine the fading property of a fabric. Both sides on this area are where most of the friction caused when I walk go into. And they also got the most consistent amount of friction everyday. So this area will show the most “true” form of the fabric over time. I usually do not look much at the knees since I do not do much heavy duty work and also that areas usually got too much friction that the fabric wears out so fast. So here we see a bright indigo hue with lots of the vertical faded streaks. So I believe this is how the fabric will be overtime. And I like it.

Whiskers are forming and quite contrast. All the slubs are more visible on the sides of the thighs.

Honey combs. Not very sharp fading but all the creases are formed.

Right leg, in the shade.

Left leg, in the shade.

We can see that in the shade, the indigo hue is more vibrant and the slubs are more vivid. One thing I noticed is the slub-streaks are pretty “chopped up”. They are formed by many small continuous streaks and separated big knots. So they create the visual effect of both “slubs” and “neps”. The slub-streaks on my other pairs are more “whole”. They start small at the tips and become larger to the middle of the streaks. I would not say this is not aesthetic or anything like that. Just an interesting difference that I have observed.

Details

I will make this part short and let the photos do the talking.

Horsehide leather patch is ageing well. Patina at the waistband touching the belt area is developing. Although it does not get the kind of sheen I expect but the patina evolution is profound.

Fading at raised belt loops, yoke, waistband are all visible and pretty fast. The stitches are still strong.

Fly buttons got that cool rusty look.

The back is ageing well also.

Simple rivets but ageing so well.

Rope fading.

Leg twist and traintrack are subtle but noticeable.

Thoughts

Generally, I’m happy with how the jeans go. It has most of the qualities that Unique Garment has talked about. The fabric is super comfortable with interesting texture and fading well. Most of the “essential” vintage ageing characteristics are there i.e. leg twist, rope fade, rusty buttons and rivets. The construction is solid and I believe the jeans will be held up well over its lifetime. All the details are ageing really cool and I like them. Just that the shrinkage is a bit out of my expectation so the fit is not that perfect but I’m ok with it.

The more important thing is when and where I would wear this jeans. It is a fashionable statement being crafted with some of the old-school ways. And the details such as horsehide leather patch or silver coated buttons really elevate the luxury feel of it. So I would wear this pair of jeans when going downtown, having a walk in the park, or hanging out with friends rather than gardening or anything that involves a lot of sitting down and standing up. And it’s a big no for office setting, even when it’s a casual Friday.

Going downtown.

It sits well among my other temporary brands for now. And I do not know how it will evolve after another 200 wears but I have a strong belief that this will be one of my favourite textured pairs of denim at the end.