ajchen.com

The primary reason for my visit to Portland last weekend was to spend time with Tanner Goods. While sampling some of the best coffee in the country, visiting factories, and attending my first soccer game were all experiences I enjoyed, the highlight was definitely my last day that was spent in the Tanner Goods workshop. They moved a few months ago into this brand new space that functions as a centralized location for design, sampling, manufacturing and shipping.

Throughout the day, I got to see the entire process of manufacturing a belt. Sam receives and inspects every single hide that is purchased; anything that isn’t up to par is sent back to be exchanged. He then marks each piece of leather out to minimize waste.

I was shocked to learn how little usable space there is on a hide. Cow hides are organic shapes, whereas belts come in straight line shapes. Plus, only a select part of the hide is consistent enough to be utilized for belts. Some remnants can be cut into bracelets and keychains, but the rest of the pieces are tossed into a pile to be brought over to the Tanner Goods flagship store. They sell these scraps by the pound to aspiring designers who might want to try their hand at making something themselves.

In this new workshop, the team has every tool necessary to make anything in their product range. This setup didn’t come together overnight; over the years, they’ve been able to acquire both equipment and knowledge from older leather artisans who helped guide them along. I could tell how grateful they were to have everything in one place – it certainly helps with efficiency.

One  thing I admired about the Tanner Goods team was their versatility. Everyone has his specialty but is able to work multiple stations as needs arise.

While there, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try my hand at making some of the items that Tanner Goods produces for us. Sam gave me a scrap piece of black chromexcel leather to strap out some bracelets.

I also got to use the hot stamping machine to create a few leather 3sixteen patches that go on our jeans. It’s a process that takes time to dial in, as there are heat, pressure and cycle time variables on the machine. I definitely developed a deeper appreciation for all the work that goes into the products they make for us and for their own range.

Self Edge New York acquired this vintage Singer darning machine not too long ago to use for jean repairs. These machines are so hard to find because they’re no longer in production – people don’t see fit to repair jeans anymore. Our SF store has had the machine for some time now, so we were pretty excited to finally be able to offer the same service in NY.

Although much simpler to operate than our chainstitch machine, it still has its nuances and intricacies. I found that one can start using it within minutes, but it takes time to learn how to repair jeans cleanly and effectively. I’ve been getting lots of pointers and help from Julian Dash, who does our repairs in SF – but I’ve realized that what I really need is experience. Thankfully we have a pretty big pile of jeans to get through, so there’ll be plenty of practice for me in the coming weeks.

What makes this machine so special? Instead of covering up holes by stitching them to a patch underneath like a single needle, the darning machine actually weaves new denim so there’s no need for patches.

Here’s a hole that I repaired today. I start by making a light framework of threads to help recreate the shape that was lost by the denim that is now gone. This helps to maintain the tension as I go back and forth and build it more densely.

After sufficiently covering the hole up and down, I turn the jeans 90 degrees to weave denim in the other direction.

Because the rip happened along the seam, I had to stitch it into the edge to make sure that it took hold.

This is a pair of 3sixteen+ 10BSPs that developed a small crotch hole. I’m actually quite pleased to see how beautifully they are fading – the close up shot shows the many hues of worn-out indigo that the rope dyed threads reveal with age.

Here it is covered up.

This customer had a pair of jeans that didn’t actually have a hole yet, but were starting to wear thin in the crotch. I darned it with longer, more spaced out stitches to make it look less intrusive. When you’re not covering a hole you don’t need it to be as dense.

Here’s what it looks like on the inside:

We’ve been making jeans for three years now, and it’s safe to say that the product we are putting out now has grown quite a bit since our first run that released in the Fall of 2008. After spending quite a bit of time engineering our cuts and troubleshooting our production runs, and we’ve realized that no matter how long we work on this, there’s still something new to learn each season. But as our cuts have been slowly dialed in and the construction details have been finalized, the next logical step was to develop our own textiles. This season marks our first run of jeans that consist of our very own denim that we developed from scratch in Japan. I credit Johan for noting all the strengths and weaknesses of the denim that we’ve used in the past, and synthesizing all that information to yield a flagship denim that we can really be proud of. It’s a great feeling to know that the jean we’re releasing this spring is unique in every way and cannot be reproduced. It couldn’t come at a better time, as our jeans will be making their way into several major doors for the first time. We’re excited to see the response.

Singularities, the project that I wrote about previously, was officially launched last week. We’ve put together a dedicated micro-site for the initiative; there you can watch all the videos, read more about the people we covered, and find out about how to submit your own work for consideration. We plan to select one individual by April 1st and will film with him or her free of charge – the resulting video will be used to help bring some well-deserved recognition to an up and coming talent.

http://www.3sixteen.com/singularities