Heddels Blowout

To listen to the full episode, subscribe at http://heddels.plus When you think of the legendary Cone Mills White Oak plant, you should also think of Ralph Tharpe. Ralph was one of the longest serving individuals at the plant, working in textile development there from 1975 up until near the mill's closure in 2017. He's now started the White Oak Legacy Foundation, a non-profit group focused on not o...

We're running down the posts of the past week with the Heddels team featuring Albert Muzquiz, James Smith, Reed Nelson, and David Shuck. Hear about our product picks, a history of abuse at a Buffalo Exchange franchise, and the story behind recreating the Quint Cap during Covid. To support the show, you can pick up a Quint Cap for 10% off with the code BLOWOUT, or 20% off with a Heddels+ subscripti...

The history of America is often one of oppression and exploitation, and the stories of American clothing are no different. Even more important than the details and the fabrics of uniforms and work clothes is who was allowed or forced to wear them. We had the chance to talk to Miko Underwood whose new denim label Oak & Acorn shines a light on the Black American experience of denim and indigo wi...

Join Heddels+ to listen to the full episode: http://heddels.plus We review and discuss the elusive tale of denim and teen pregnancy, Blue Denim from 1959 (thank you Phillip from Denmark for sending us a copy!) Hear about 1950s morals on teenage delinquency, family values, and abortion.

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake rocked the country of Japan. It moved the entire country over two meters west and reset the Earth's axis and caused a subsequent tsunami that hit the east coast of the Japanese region of Tohoku with a 133 foot tall wave. The influx of water lead to a failure and meltdown of three reactor cores of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, sending nuclear radiation t...

To hear the full episode, subscribe at https://www.heddels.com/join-heddels-plus We’re talking about Tony Alamo, and yes that’s spelled like Alamo as in “remember the” but it’s pronounced like Ah-lah-mo. Regardless, he was about as despicable a human being as they come. From the late 60s onward, he ran a religious cult that separated families, forced people to work without pay, beat and sexually a...

Shameless plug here for our new membership program Heddels+ that'll get you more Blowout episodes, more written content, up to 2 product giveaways a month, a Discord forum where you can show us your pants, and discounts all across our niche. Get a free month trial with the code EXTRABLOWOUT: https://www.heddels.com/join-heddels-plus C'mon! C'monnnnnnn

We all know her, we all love her, we all follow her. Amy Leverton, aka Denim Dudes, has been at the bleeding edge of the denim business for almost two decades now. Much of it working as a "trend forecaster", which is basically the person who interprets culture and the world at large to determine what looks are going to pop and when so manufacturers can get the wheels in motion to meet the moment....

This is the end, my denim friends, the end. After over 7 hours of denim history, the beginning of Japanese denim will be our last stop on our 13-part denim history series. Learn all about why Japanese people became culturally obsessed with American jeans, early pairs of knockoff 501s, how Okayama became the denim capital of Japan (and arguably the world), and more on this final installment. This i...

At least 99% of denim on the market today isn't raw, it's been stonewashed, lasered, or sandblasted into what mimics an authentically worn pair of jeans. But this wasn't always the case, pre-distressed denim is a relatively recent phenomenon, which we're going to be getting into how the fashion market took over denim and they took the indigo with them. Learn all about Jackie Kennedy's favorite den...

We’ve talked about gold miners, we’ve talked about ancient sailors, we’ve talked about cowboys, soldiers, and poets. Today we’re going to get into something a little heavier, and we don’t mean Iron Hearts. Since practically its inception, denim has had a role in institutional racism in the United States. As we mentioned a few episodes ago, one of Levi’s earliest selling points was that it was “the...

We've arrived at the Baby Boomer section of our indigo narrative. The transgressive postwar counterculture may have been the first to embrace denim and workwear for its style over utility, but it would be the teens of the 1950s to create the mass appeal. Join us as we discuss denim being banned in schools, jeans on screen heartthrobs, and a pop singer being denied entrance at a Vancouver hotel. Th...

What's up, Frogface? We're here with a bonus episode of Reed and David talking over all 80 glorious minutes of Marlon Brando's biker bad boy flick The Wild One . The movie is not good, with lots of gender dynamics that have aged poorly but it also has a lot of jeans, leather jackets, hats and knits that haven't. It's got Perfectos, Cafe Racers, A-2s, B-3s, top hats, beanies, 5-panels, 501s, ringer...

The US government did it's best to reintegrate the young people returning from WWII, but an sizeable portion returned wanting nothing to do with it. Instead of getting a middle class job and starting a family, they wanted to do drugs, ride motorcycles, push sexual boundaries, and wear jeans. This didn't go over well at first. Our series continues with bikers and beats as Reed and David navigate de...

While on a road trip through New England in the summer of 1965, eight Japanese men unwittingly created some of the most influential images of late 2000s menswear. We're talking about Take Ivy , a cultural sensation that's become the de facto document of the 1960s prep look. And we're talking with the person who wrote the book on the intersection of Japanese and American fashion, W. David Marx , au...

This was quite the year for a variety of reasons. And what better way to reflect upon it than to count down the most read articles on a pants website? Reed and David are joined by Heddels Features Editor James Smith to run down our top hits (not necessarily greatest, but top) this year and look forward to what may be yet to come. This episode is brought to you by the Heddels Shop , listeners get 1...

Like the light switch and the steering wheel, zippers are one of those things that we interact with so much they just seem like perpetual fixtures of everyday life. The story of the humble zipper, however, is one of continuous failure unending iteration to bring us the cheap and easy thing we enjoy today. Designer, vintage dealer, and zipper enthusiast John Gluckow takes us through the history of...

DATELINE DEC 14, 2020:  JEANS GO TO WAR! As the United States exited the Great Depression, the world had to contend with a few other new powers flexing their military might on a global stage. And America did so in denim! This episode, Reed and David explain the different military and domestic applications our fabric had during WWII and how wartime rationing would change the look and feel of j...

When stalking the jungles of Vietnam, many of the elite US Navy SEALs didn't sport their standard issue camo, but rather opted for Levi's 501 and 505 denim jeans instead. We're talking with Chris Danforth , a writer and researcher who investigated this story and spoke to some of the SEALs who wore jeans on their night raids for its utility on the battlefield. Hear all about how they customized the...

Denim soldiers forward through one of the darkest times in recent American history, the Great Depression. Reed and David explore the denim histories of both the Dust Bowl migrants and the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose denim uniforms built much of the infrastructure we still enjoy today. Hear about all that and more in part 7 of our ongoing podcast series. If you'd like to sup...

This week we're on with renowned photographer and former vintage dealer / cigarette security guard Eric Kvatek. After getting an initial lucky break, Eric has shot for everyone from 45rpm, Strongarm, Battenwear, W'menswear, Holubar, Heddels, and most notably all the books for Japanese brand Kapital. One of his passions from his collecting days is printed t-shirts, specifically Harley-Davidson t-sh...

Saddle up, partner! We're here to talk about how the image of the cowboy is a manufactured piece of myth-making that helped spread denim pants all across these United States. In part 6 of our denim history marathon, Reed and David discuss the origins of the actual cowboys in the tradition of Mexican vaqueros and how that morphed into denim clad gunslingers on the silver screen. Listen in for all t...

As the rivet cold war subsided out west, blue jeans went national. We dig into the effects rail connectivity had on the expansion of jeans eastward and how certain companies began dividing up the map into regional territories, establishing the modern day "Big Three" of Levi's , Lee , and Wrangler/Blue Bell . Listen in for all that and more on this week's episode. As always, listeners get 10% off a...

We're back in 1870s San Francisco and Reed and David are exploring the fallout of Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis's exclusive patent to put rivets on pants, creating the first iteration of what we know as jeans today. The resulting  period kicked off an arms race of competing brands trying to make their own inventions to compete with the patent-protected riveted Levi's pants. If you'd like to le...

It's nearly the end of the 2020 election in the United States. And David's taking this week's episode to explain why something seemingly innocuous as a pair of jeans is very much a product of and affected by our political system. If you live here, please take the time to vote either in person or by dropping off your ballot. In many states, you can register same day and you can check right here whe...