Limited edition
This item is limited and won’t be restocked.
Description
In celebration of our 10-year anniversary we’ve created a special denim banner, as a gift for retailers stocking the exclusive 10YA jeans. The banner pays homage to a famous advertising banner by Levi’s, depicting a cowboy smoking a cigarette while resting against his saddle and enjoying the setting sun. In our iteration, the BENZAK European made mascot watches over mount Fuji, combining elements of both our EU and Japanese lines.
The fabric used for these banners comes from a ‘test’ roll of the 10YA denim (see full description below), containing some weaving errors and shading variants. To not let an otherwise beautiful fabric go to waste, we’ve decided to dedicate it to this project, considering the ‘B-choice’ aspects wouldn’t matter for this specific purpose, and further adding to our sustainable mindset.
Besides the ones for our retailers, we’ve produced a few extra pieces, which are now available for purchase in our webshop, albeit in limited quantities.
Dimensions: 110 x 80 cm
Fabric
In honour of our momentous 10-year anniversary, we embarked on a quest to create something truly exceptional, challenging Candiani to craft a denim unlike anything they had ever made before—a denim with a vintage, textured appearance.
When comparing Italian denim to Japanese denim, one notable distinction lies in their character. Italian denim tends to possess a smoother texture due to various post-weave finishes, while Japanese denim fabrics often showcase an uneven, 'wabi-sabi' structure. Both styles have their merits, as personal preference plays a significant role. At BENZAK, we embrace both types of fabrics to maintain a well-rounded denim offering.
For this particular project, we set out to create a denim fabric that would defy preconceived notions of how denim from a specific region should look. To achieve this, we embarked on the development process using the 15.5 oz. RCI selvedge as a base. Its construction already possessed a slightly uneven and low-tension quality, with a classic redcast indigo dye on the warp. We then replaced the weft with that of the 13 oz. brown cotton selvedge to enhance the vintage feel. Because this weft yarn is slightly thinner, the overall weight dropped from 15.5 oz. to 15 oz.
However, the true magic lies in the finishing—or rather, the absence of post-weave finishes. Apart from the necessary sanforization process to prevent excessive shrinkage, this fabric is essentially cut and sewn in its loomstate form. The result is an enchantingly uneven and hairy surface on the outside of the fabric, which turned out to be incredibly appealing.
As the crowning touch, we have finished the selvedge with a gold ID ticker. The selvedge itself is composed of seven threads: two white, three gold, and two white threads once again.
