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.
The GRIT is a modified naval shirt design executed in selvedge chambray. The chambray fabric's natural selvedge is placed modestly on the inner placket and gusseting areas. But the reason it's called the GRIT is its history-drenched fabric character. The personality of the wear-pattern is equal parts shirt-off-the-back of Cool Hand Luke and a drop cloth from the studio of an atelier of an Italian Master (which sorta describes where its made).
And the art of indigo finishing has evolved to the point where we can now craft contemporary finishes which aim to capture some of this same character. The subtle art of denim and, in this case, chambray finishing is a key element of what Denham Design is about. Worship Tradition, Destroy Convention.
WORSHIP TRADITION: WEAR PATTERNS AND THE RE-CREATION OF TIME
The word "laundry" sometimes used to describe indigo finishes doesn't conjure the most accurate image for finishing. The intention isn't just to wash a piece to create a finish. The ambition is to recreate the one-of-a-kind effect of time itself on fabric. More than that, the effect of time is then multiplied by the highly individual impact of a particular pattern of wear unique to a singe item. In the case of the GRIT we used a Big Buck workshirt from the Denham Garment Library as a starting point.
SELVEDGE CHAMBRAY Selvedge is the "self-edge" running the length of the long edges of the bolt of material marking the point where the shuttle returns each time after running the filling "weft" yarn between the warp yarns... in other words, after each weave. In the days when it was even more critical to maximize the use of the whole cloth, the selvedge's trademark striped edge patterns would be hidden discreetly in the construction in an effort to avoid wasting fabric.
ITALIAN FINISH/BEAUTY IN A PATTERN OF NATURAL WEAR
The GRIT has been treated to an artisan finishing done in cooperation with our collaborators in Italy. It's easy to misunderstand the impulse to make a new thing look old, but that's not really the point. The point is that the highly individual and natural patina of wear we discover on vintage garments are often things of genuine beauty and unrivaled visual character.
HERRINGBONE FACINGS Denham jeans are marked with, among other features, the use of rugged herringbone twill in pocketing and waistband areas. This same tough natural standard has been deployed in the facings of the GRIT as well.
KEEPING TABS That's how we describe this bias taped feature constructed in self-fabric that serves a bunch of thankless little functions on each garment. On the GRIT they're used to secure the back collar keeping it in place at all times, and allowing the shirt to be hung locker-room style when in storage.