Home (all) Welcome to DENHAM the Jeanmaker´s website. Each card reveals a story which represents one facet of Denham´s vision. Categorised by the collection, garment library, studio & stores, to press reports & the birth of the Cutter´s Council. Designed in time with no beginning nor end, through resourceful innovation and fearless experimentation. It´s a decorated blog. A tailor-made homepage. We hope to fascinate but are equally prepared to frustrate.
RE-CUT: ALL OF JEANMAKING TRADITION STARTED WITH THE NOTION OF RE-USE
MOTHER OF INVENTION One of the legends of the birth of modern jeanscraft is the story about American workwear tailors crafting pants out of the tough fabric intended for tents during the Gold Rush and the expansion West. There are other stories but the central notion of making clothing from fabric intended for temporary housing is what inspired this exercise in re-purposing. Like the Gold Rush canvas tents before them, the Dutch Marine Bivouacs contain all the rugged fabric-features required to produce a tough utlity garment and the MEDIC model provided the right tailored starting-point for this new Medic Intel
The new Medic Intel was developed as a limited edition for Spring 2010. It employs reclaimed 3-Layer Gore-Tex Dutch Marine "bivouac" sleeping-shells which were taken apart and RECUT in order to create the next generation of our MEDIC jacket from Fall 2009.
HYBRID DANDYISM
Maybe it's the latent Britishness in a few of us. Maybe we're not as averse to dandyism as we sometimes pretend, but one result of grafting together a sportcoat silhouette with motorcycle action back bi-swing shoulders and building it from recut military gore-tex is that you can endeavor to dress it up a little if you're feeling the urge. It will always show the signs of its former life and some banks may prefer you wear pinstripes when you visit the loan office, but still...
STACKING THE DETAILS
Call it Utility Dandyism. Our commitment to detailing and our inclination toward modest invention creates the opportunity to stack detail on-top of detail when items are combined. The strap-down Keeping Tabs collar of the new Office shirt sits right behnid the new Cable Connection button hole of the Medic Intel when you run the two styles together.
WORSHIP TRADITION The original Fall 2009 Medic sportocat design had, in turn, been based on a WW2 P.O.W. Medic's 4-Button Sportcoat currently archived in the DENHAM GARMENT LIBRARY.
Each Medic Intel reveals the signs of its one-of-a-kind creation. Sections where thread holes are still visible from seams that were pulled apart from the original bivouacs and areas of seam-taping left over from the earlier constructions provide subtle indications of the recutting pocess.
Our construction also departs from a traditional 3-button sportcoat design in that it introduces new ideas like a buttonhole-free Cable Connection closure and the integration of a biker's bi-swing action back which allows you to reach your arms forward without your cuffs riding up your wrists. You can reach your handlebars or push open the doors to the local saloon in confidence.
RE-USED 3-LAYER GORE-TEX Gore (understandably) insists on seam-taping but we won ourselves a little creative latitude by using this normally overlooked repurposed raw material (in other words we did it without asking anyone at Gore). And, although we didn't re-tape our own design's structural seams we did use a tightly folded and felled assembly technique. The finished garment might leak a bit at the seams in a downpour, we admit. But the 3L Gore fabric puts up a hell of a fight against a surprise spring shower. A fighting spirit no doubt leftover from its past life in the Dutch Marines.
CABLE CONNECTION An entirely new system was created to replace standard sliced-and-reparied button-holes. In this case we created a clean finish edge with angular notches and ran a coninous dynamic cord through the entire placket. The cord crosses the notches to create the cleanest button holes we've ever seen and they're real likely to stay that way. If you've never seen a construction quite like this, well niether had we until we prototyped it here.
EACH PART PUT TO USE In ancient cultures you read about folks using every element of an animal. Hides for clothing, meat for food, oils for medicine. In our case we tried to use every part of the origional bivouac. The original sleeping-bag's Corduara stuff-sack became the shoulder reinforcements, the drawstring webbing strips became the pocket-jetting, the drawstring became the Cable Connection and the bag itslef provided the main 3L Gore-Tex body fabric.
NOTE: This is obvously a use of Gore-Tex 3L fabric that didn't go through the usual channels and we're still not sure how you "market" a jacket with this feature when it wasn't a sanctioned Gore project but we assume we'll find out soon enough.
ANOTHER NOTE: Big-Ups to the folks at Dazed & Confused for picking up this story and helping to spread the word.
Let's Push Things Forward
by The Streets
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