TWC Jeans

I haven’t felt like writing recently.

“Oh, but you must, the content cannot die”.

Yeah, it’s not been there, that little twinkle or urge to park and open up.

Photos have been taken, and ideas thought, but of and about other things. 

Pretty sure I’m not alone in this summer of staring at roses and thinking of times past. 

My usual railing against the funeral director chic, overly starched and prissy beyond belief stuff hasn’t felt right. 

Instead walking about. To my intense shame, walking about in things I’ve thought about. Whilst I’m not into that stance-y, hey looks-y at me clothing. I do care, a lot. Not for anyone else, just for me. 

Which is why, when I go to get my morning paper or pick up milk from Alison, it may not look it, but I’ve thought about it. Or if run out of tonic water/petrol I jump in car and hit up the local petrol station, un-buttoned just so. 

I can’t ever remember being not like this, not worrying about fitting in, more looking like how I want to. Magpie stealing things I’ve seen and then using 10 years later. 

That Porsche which turned up at home when I was a kid, owned by friend of my old man, only seen briefly, but that was enough. The tan, slightly bucket seats, sound the engine made, those curves… Two weeks later, told my English teacher, was going to be a playboy when asked about future plans, apparently a no no in Welsh state school.

It wasn’t some expectation of being a pyjama unclad lothario, I just thought they might have cool stuff.

Or the time it was suggested that to improve my French, a diet of French magazines and films.

Mistake, as I was straight on the juicy stuff, stovetop espresso for breakfast before school, still amazed I went past 6 foot. 

This then led to an idea that I needed driving shoes. I’ll have seen someone cool in West London, so I saved up and saved up some more, before getting what was perfect for Notting Hill, not so for bowling round Neath.

As a moody, caffeinated teenager with dislike for authority, I would push it until the last moment before getting up for school, sat on school bus, listening to Pulp’s ‘This is Hardcore’, bought for the Peter Saville cover.

Escapes all. Views into other worlds. Moments away in your head and all my own little attack on the creeping boredom of soon to approach adulthood. 

Boring house, boring car, safe job, stare at the wall, Friday soon, Sunday doom. 

This has been running through my head recently. During lockdown I was reminded that I’ve worked for myself for nearly 13 years. 

I say worked, at time, it’s felt like torture, a simultaneous kick in the guts and nuts, but never like work. 

In fact, even after picking myself up from another set back it’s felt like nothing less than the greatest gift. 

To have found myself in a world where each day and task is different from the last. Where my brain is questioned and I’m pushed to further myself, and to constantly evolve filled with fascination about the people around me, my contemporaries and beyond.

Last week, sat in a Stoke Newington pub, me and a mate reminisced about 2008, remember that? The year of beans on toast, late stock deliveries, and sleep lost. 

As industry crumbled and consumer confidence cracked, heart break abound and jobs were lost. But, I couldn’t stop, was too far in. Driving to London at dawn & then back to my shop in Wales to make sure I could make that meeting and ship those online orders. 

Always dressed right. 

Clothes, they’re futureproofed projection devices. Not just of who you are, or even want to be, but who you could be, if you wanted, a contender, a somebody, or just happy being like everybody. 

In essence a way of telling your story, well the one you want to tell. So, in these maddeningly sad times, when it might be too easy to succumb, numbed by never ending horror on rolling news, we need a bit of escapism, some optimism. 

Because if you don’t believe it, who else will? 

Right now the messages from those who have lost their job, those whose business has gone or plans cut, seem daily. An industry which is a little bit lost.

It affects us all, because this industry, which relies on people going beyond the expected, throwing caution to wind, being creative, filled with hard working, intuitive, enterprising, lateral thinkers, those who search for the next, is an industry to be championed, one needed for the beauty in life. 

And beauty isn’t frippery, and fashion is a serious business which provides a home and a showcase for extraordinary talent. 

So, 2008. Well, it was obviously different, but what came next from the gloom, was optimism. 

An opportunity to rethink and reshape our habits, one we took, but, it’s fashion so after a while we lost the new habits and slipped back into the old. 

This time, well I’m hoping it sticks. 

And if it does, it’ll be in part thanks to people such as Adam and Charlotte Cameron of ‘The Workers Club’ who I saw last month at their studio/store/hub in Oxfordshire, industry veterans with impeccable CVs. Good people doing great things – more another time.

TWC provides solutions to the problems life throws us. Exciting things, made well, clothes to love and use.

Which is what I’ve been doing with these, their made in Okayama slim fit ‘natural’ jeans. Walking about, thinking, and taking photos. 

For someone who lives in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mud and labradors, I have a strange love for white jeans, even if they mostly are worn with wellies.

Through wear and wash, this hairy 13oz Japanese denim has softened and lightened. Slouchy and tight in all the right places, they’re yet more time travelling bits, this time, Antonioni’s Blow Up, camera round neck and Emma Willis shirt half un done and collar rucked. 

A chance to escape briefly and to feel that glimmer of hope.