Day 121 Fit Guide Raymond

When I started this test for the second time I found out that Dr.Denim has launched a pair of Raymond Red Salvage raw denim. I tried them on, but as with so many things in my life, it just didn't fit comfortably, so I swapped them for a pair of Ormond Salvage raw denim.

These are a nice pair of jeans, especially the red salvage denim, so if Raymond fits you, you'll be pleased.

Day 120 Fit Guide Jones

Jones, as with Joel and Doyle, I have not seen in shops near me. It seems like a perfect pair for working in. Slouchy and all that.

Day 119 Fit Guide Donk Chino

I have 4 pairs of these. Not all chinos mind you. I have on pair in black Corduroy, perfect for autumn. Then two pairs of normal chinos in tones of brown. The last pair is a pair of raw denim, in the shape of the Donk Chino. A very cool pair of denim, with chino pockets front and back and exceptionally comfortable. I'd highly recommend trying to get your hands on a pair of them, you won't be disappointed.

Day 118 Fit Guide Joel

I need this one. Stretched denim, tapered leg and loose top. Sounds comfortable. Dear Alexander, could you please... 32, 34... yada yada...

Day 117 Fit Guide Doyle

Haven't seen these in any of the shops I frequent. The waste seems to 70's high for me. Would love to try them on though, because the high waste is making a comeback, with wider hems however. These are tapered. Perhaps in a worn out denim would be good for a pair around the house.

Day 116 Fit Guide Largo

I'm not a fan of chains and lots of buttons, pockets that close and so on. If you are, then you'll love Largo. Think Hip-hop cool with a Dr.Denim feel.

I've tried them on, and the shape is ok on me, but as I said, too much detailing for me. I like plain, simple and smooth.

Day 115 Fit Guide Stanley

These jeans are made from such heavy selvage denim, plus the denim was left out of the final wash, if I got my story right, and therefore the denim feels soft to the touch, and sort of fuzzy. I love the suspenders.

They will take forever to wear in, and because they're made from such a heavy denim, it feels as if they can stand on their own.

Here's photos of my pair. I've only worn them about 10 times so far.

Day 114 Fit Guide Raine

If I had to choose shorts, it won't be these ones. They're based on the Raymond denim model, and I've tried that model on a couple of times, and it just doesn't seem to fit my body shape. Glad Dr.Denim has more than one model. My favourite is Ormond, and I wish they will do some shorts based on them.

Day 113 Fit Guide Eddie

Been looking at these shorts at my favourite store Red Devil, but haven't placed an order yet. They come in all the colours and flavours, perfect for summer. Think I got to get me a pair at least to try out, because I think they are based on the Donk Chinos model, just shorts, and Donk fits me well.

Here I wrote about my first pair of Donks.

Day 112 Festival Summer

It's that time of year again, when everyone grabs their gum boots and their raincoats, because it's festival time. Last night we were at the first one of the season, called Woody West and I saw my new favourite band called Rambling Nicholas Heron. Really good stuff.

So my first festival down, and no, not all artists performed inside. Watched Band of Horses on the large stage outside. Just hope my jeans last the distance through this warm, sweaty, rainy Swedish summer.

Day 111 Ormonds Grey

Going through a test like this has its benefits. You don't have to wash trousers for 6 months, as you're only wearing one pair. One negative is that you usually have a cupboard full of cool jeans that you're not wearing at all. As in the case of my grey Ormonds. They're just so comfortable and the denim is so soft. Oh well, in two months I can wear them again.

Day 110 Travelling home through Norway

Headed home after a week in the north of Sweden. Yes you guessed it, warm and sweaty from a 10 hour train ride. Important to hang the jeans up properly at night, so they're perfectly dry the next day. You do not want the sweaty smell to start, as then it's emergency in the freezer time.

Day 109 Hiking and Fishing

A really testing time up in the north I must say. Today it's hiking, followed by fishing. I'm happy I got the horse smell out by just hanging them up over the heated towel rail. Perhaps it was so much the horse than the saddle smell?

Anyway, today we went for a hike in the mountains in a place called Fjällnäs (Google Maps). It's a really beautiful part of Sweden, and specifically this time of the year, you always have a chance to spot a brown bear, elk, wolves or reindeer. I only saw reindeer this time around.

The hiking was followed by my first fishing in Sweden in a lake called Funäsdalssjön. I managed to catch my first Northern Pike.

All in all a great day and the jeans made it through with some more wear and tear and a few more stories to tell.

Day 108 Red Wine Stain

You know, this had to happen. Sooner or later. I do drink a lot of red wine, and when you mix that up with having running kids around, you're bound to sooner or later have it on your clothing.

We have just finished dinner, the kids were on high alert and my wine was in my hand, when a 4 year old boy, who shall remain nameless, ran straight into my hand and a quarter of the glass ended on my jeans, my shirt, the floor and the couch. The shirt I got clean just because I got it soaked immediately. My jeans I decided to leave on, but took a damp cloth and rubbed as much as I could, and nothing more. I didn't have spare clothing, so there wasn't much else I could do, besides it's not the end of the world. The wine stained my left inner thigh and my front right pocket area.

I am writing this post a week later, and I have to say, that if I asked you to show me where the two red wine stains were, you would not be able to find them. I am amazed that there's no stains. Sure the jeans are still dark and all of that raw denim colour stuff, but I know what red wine does to a white shirt. On this raw denim however, there's nothing. So perhaps in the future I'm not going to worry so much about the red wine.

If however you get red wine on your couch, then cover the whole area with salt. It pretty much cleans the stain out by absorbing all the liquid. Works pretty well.

Day 107 Horseriding

The thing I love about testing jeans, is that there never seems to be an end to the things you can do. This time around it was horseriding.

I'm currently up in the middle of Sweden in a place called Funäsfjällen, and there's a lot of higher mountains here, than further South. Well 1500-2000 metres high, which is pretty high considering their neighbour Denmark, which has a highest point of 70 metres.

So there I am with a friend and her two Icelandic ponies Silfra and Dagur and hoping not just that I won't sweat a lot, but that I will afterwards be able to get the horse smell out.

In the end it all turned out OK. Not too bad smell, and I hung them up on the heated towel rail and they were dry in the morning.

Day 106 Funäsdalen, Sverige

The thing I love about Sweden at this time of the year is that this photo was taken at 23h25. Still light, even though the sun has set at 22h30. Doesn't get much darker than this at this time of the year. It does rain a lot during summers though. Perfect for these jeans. NOT!

Day 105 Timberlands

I didn't think I'd be wearing these again this year with summer and all being here. But now I'm halfway up in Sweden and it's a bit colder and raining. Happy I packed them, my favourite pair of Timberlands.

Day 104 Travelling

Today has been a long day. Traveled for 11 hours, which is the equivalent of a trip to South Africa from Sweden by plane. Except today it was by train from Gothenburg to Stockholm, then train to Ljusdal, then bus to Sveg and on to Funäsdalen, for a total of 1300 kilometres. Little tired.

Day 103 Gothenburg

Growing up in Cape Town, I'm used to the views. High mountains and so on. Now I live in Gothenburg, and this is as good as it gets. Pretty nice view still though.

A reminder for a week, as I'm travelling again tomorrow to a client in Funäsdalen. I usually take the night train via Oslo in Norway, then Stören and on to Röros. This time I'm using the expensive Swedish rail system which takes much longer and includes four and a half hours by bus of a total 11 hour journey. Yes, 11 hours, then I'm only halfway up in Sweden. A very long country and journey indeed.


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Day 102 Stains

One of the most asked questions and most visited pages on this blog is How to wash your jeans? The second is How to get rid of stains?. Although I am no expert, I have had my share of experiences, this being my second 6 month denim test and all. I have had everything from chewing gum, mud, dirty snow, baby food, porridge, wine, beer and Cava on my jeans and every time succeeded in getting it out. The only difference here, and something that makes it harder is that you cannot use water with raw denim, as it will cause the fabrics to shrink. Makes removing stains from raw denim tough, so rule number one applies, which is to not get anything on your jeans in the first place.

Above is an image from Men's Journal Magazine on how to sort out those stubborn stains. But as I said, this is for when you have already washed your raw jeans and they have shrunk and so on.

What I have found out is this:

• Beer and white wine is not so bad. Just use paper to dab it as much as you can.
• Mud needs to dry first then use a brush to brush it off, as you would with dust.
• Don't get red wine on your jeans. It doesn't come out. If you do get it on the first thing you do is take off your jeans and lie them flat on a table. Then cover the entire stain with fine salt. The salt draws out the wine. Helps a lot, but you're lucky if it removes all.
• Baby food and porridge. Take off as much as you can, then a damp cloth usually gets rid of the rest.
• Grass stains is along with red wine. Don't get it on in the first place. I would assume that once dry, a brush would get rid of a lot. And here I mean a hard bristle brush.

Other than that, if you know of something more, let me know.

Day 101 More Jeans Companies

Here's three more denim brands that I have never heard of before. The first is Silver Denim Co. (www.silverjeans.com) which seems to be a young outdoors lifestyle type brand. The second is Buffalo Jeans by David Bitton, which appears to be a lot more fashion orientated brand. And the third is Mek Denim, which appears to be a boy meets girl and they both like denim brand.

Of them all I prefer the Silver Jeans brand. I try not to be a fashion victim, which means buy things now because they're in fashion. I prefer buying something because it's made well, the craftsmanship is outstanding and it will last. Another catch for me with any brand is the narrative. What story do they have to tell?

Day 100

A 100 days? Who would have thought? Well so far the jeans are handling everything I have thrown at them. That includes a moving day, beer, two glasses of wine, a glass of Cava, a 5km cycle in the rain, 4 other rainy days, a cat and one dog. Looking forward to the next 93 days before the first wash.

Day 99 Triumph Scrambler

No.1 on my birthday list is this Triumph Scrambler. An 865cc beauty. Feels like these jeans would fit well into that leather seat.

Day 98 Havaianas

Probably my most favourite shoes in the world. If I could wear jeans, T-shirt, Cap and Havaianas every day I would. Not sure what my clients would say, but hey, one should be able to dream.

Day 97 A New Wallet

I love small wallets. I love front pocket wallets. I especially love small front pocket wallets. Today I felt it was time to get a new one. We bought this exact model for a friend of mine and his is looking especially good after a few month's wear. It's an especially soft leather. I'll post more photos as the wear gets more and more and it gets more character.

Here's some posts I did on the marks my front pocket wallet has made on my other jeans.

Day 96 Alex

This weekend I met up with Alexander and his brother Johannes from Dr.Denim at a party with a group of our friends. As always, my camera was there, but I found this photo on it afterwards. Taken by Johannes while my camera was just lying on the table. Apparently the camera was on and he just pushed the shutter button. Nice image. Great composition.

During the night Alex and I did compare our jeans, as we're both doing the same test, he with a pair of Red Salvage Raymonds and me with a pair of Red Salvage Ormonds. I think I'm leading, but the final wash will tell the truth.

Day 95 Rainbow time

It's that time of the year again in Gothenburg. Time for the HBTQ Festival.

Day 94 Grass stains in the park

I've mentioned before how late the sun sets here in Sweden during summer. In the north in the Arctic Circle the sun never sets for a period of about 6 weeks. Down here in the south it sets at about 10pm at night and is up again at around 4am. That means that after work, which ends at 5pm, you still have 5 hours left to enjoy the day. That's why we have so many parks and green spaces in town. So many people just enjoying the fact that summer is here.

Which brings me to grass stains. Anyone know how to get rid of them without using water?

Day 93 Summer is here

I walk past this Rhododendron bush every day on my way to work and on my way home. Today it was at it's most beautiful it will get all year I think. All the flowers are out and it smells in a range of about 5 metres around the bush. Now we know summer is finally here.

Day 92 Colouration

Finally I can show you some coloration. The dark blue is from the hem area, which is still blue because I fold up the hems. The light blue part are my knees. They always go first on my jeans. Since as far back as I can remember, my knees turned white before any other part.