It was 2020 when we put our hands on this project. It was also when Ryo joined TCB and right after he joined (he may be cheeky), he showed me his vintage Wrangler jacket telling me " Hajime, let's make this jacket that John Lennon loved!"
It seems his love towards the Beatles and John Lennon comes from his dad. He's now our guy to spread the attraction/ charms of what we make globally but his motivation to study English in the first place was to understand the Beatles lyrics. Ryo's dad visited New York in 1981 to pray for John after John Lennon left the world. In front of Dakota House, he bought a post card of John Lennon and he stills cherishes the photo till today.
I myself love the Beatles and John and used to collect the Beatles records since I was a teenager. You might know this if you have visited us because our store is full of the Beatles records. John was my icon and Wrangler jacket worn by John always looks fresh and cool. I feel there's some charm in Wrangler that Levis don't have.
By the way, 2020 was the 80th anniversary year for John's birth, and the 40th anniversary after his death. Forcefully linking myself to this anniversary year, it was when I turned to 40 year old so I felt almost destined to make Wrangler repro then. The result is so TCB but it took more than 2 years to release though...
■Fabric
We have developed many Levi's repros and one Lee model so far but it was actually first time for TCB to produce left-hand twill denim fabric. We could not make use of the accumulated know-how, knowledge so far so we started the product development from the scratch. Wrangler is the big 3 brands in the American denim history but compared to the other 2, the history is relatively shorter, starting from 1975 under the name of Wrangler. While I was doing a research on their vintage, the ads, etc, I found an interesting page on the Gimmie Book (the last picture).
A kid dressed in the cowboy style says
"Mom likes 'em 'cause they're sanforized, says they're so easy to wash."
This was a proof that Wrangler's fabric is sanforized so thanks to this little kid, we have done the fabric right! It's a left hand twill, 11.6 oz fabric with yarn count 9 for both the warps and wefts.
According to my research, the Wrangler's art number for this model, 11MW, comes from the fact that the fabric used on this model was 11oz. Because it's left hand twill, the angle of the weaving becomes a bit steeper than right hand twill because of the construction of the vintage shuttle loom machines, which will lead to rather some waterfall fade (vertically faded) than dotty fade seen on Levis. Speaking of the sanforizing process, it consists of 3 different processes: Anti-twisting, anti-shrinkage, and singeing (burning the fluffy hairs on the surface of fabric). Looking at the vintage Wrangler of the 50's, the legs twist strongly so we have only done the anti-shrinkage process for this fabric. So, it's like half unsanforized and half sanforized!
■Detail
We have reproduced the Wrangler 111MJ which John loved. The snap button on the chest pocket, the woven tag, and the buttons, are all made exclusively for this model. As for the leather tag on the jeans, the rope-motif design is parodied there too. In the early days of Wrangler tag, the shape of the rope were all inward (it later became all outward) and we reproduced the inward rope tag this time.
The woven tag for the jacket is the famous vertical bell typed one. (It's complicated to tell all about but the bell mark get tilted to the side for the jackets after the 60's so the vertical bell is a sign that the jacket was made before the 60's.
Speaking of the flap of the chest pocket, it's usually made of 2 separate fabrics sewn together. Looking at the Levis denim jackets, the fabric on the back side of the flap is much lighter fabric for Type 1~ Type 3 early model.
But the pictures show the flap made of a piece of fabric. From the manufacturing point of view, I'd say the Levis flap is more cost/production efficient though.
There's also one strange point on the stitch on the waist. I thought it was just an irregular point on the specific vintage jacket Ryo has but as I studied the details more from other jackets of the same era, the stitch on the waist is always off so I assume it was intentionally done. But again, I think the way Levis finishes the waist stitch appears more efficient again...
For the bar tucks on the pleats, it's the round one this time.
For these dot tucks, we usually use more narrow thread like yarn count:50 but if made with the narrow thread, it makes the perfect round dot tucks and it doesn't look like the vintage ones. The quality of the dot tuck itself is ○ (round) but the quality as in the reproduction authenticity is ×... So, we ended up using yarn count 30 for our dot tucks to reproduce the perfect unbalanced circles.
Not to mention, the action pleats on the shoulder are a must detail for Wrangler jacket.
■Size Chart
The size chart is in the picture section. We have taken the measurements from the actual jackets after the factory wash.
■Surprise
This is the first denim product to be released in our 10th anniversary year so we wanted to do something surprising for our customers. Unfortunately, John's not with us anymore so we can't hear his words about jeans or Wrangler but there's a perfect person to speak about the Beatles & Fashion/ John Lennon & Wrangler.
If you are a Beatles fan, you of course have heard of his name but we have done an interview with Mr. Tony Bramwell.
For those who don't know him, Tony Bramwell grew up in Liverpool with Beatles George, Paul and John. He was always a key Beatles insider, working first for manager Brian Epstein at their management company NEMS and then for The Beatles at Apple where, amongst other projects, he organised the Magical Mystery tour. He is also, like so many of that generation, a key denim fan, who’d source American denim from wherever he could. He was the perfect person to speak about his friend John’s iconic Wrangler jacket.
”If you want to know anything about The Beatles, ask Tony Bramwell. He remembers more than we do." Paul McCartney
As for this interview, we plan to post it on our blog on 25th April. TCB is just a small denim brand of 10 people in the very rural town, Kojima, so even we have never expected that something like this would happen. We are very grateful for the connections and the relationship which making jeans have brought to us!!
■Special Thanks
Mr. Christian Erickson, the master of meow-related puns!
