Double RL Denim Western
After Summer in Spring, this morning, rain.
No far too early coffee in the garden, watching buds pop and berries ripen before rolling into fields in shirt sleeves and jeans.
Instead mug hugged and sipped, silently watching wind whipped rain drops dance and bounce whilst awaiting my imminent arrival in weathered waxed cotton and those shirt sleeves and jeans.
This has been a glorious spring, but all around needed a wash and brush up, ready for this land to be pleasant and green again, for crops to sparkle in sunshine and shimmer with the breeze.
Or at least I reminded myself when I got back home after a few hours of dog walking and chores doing, damp and wind bashed around the edges.
Peaks and troughs.
I turned 40 in December and the start of this year has been, interesting. But, I feel better at 40 than I did at 30, not due to some epiphany of self discovery, if truth be told, for richer or poorer I think I worked that out about aged 6, maybe there is just something in the air.
I did want to repeat something I did at 30 though, I picked up some new pieces which I knew would age with me across the decade and beyond, including something deceptively simple which some have suggested they were surprised I didn’t already own.
The Buffalo Western Shirt from Double RL. Sized up to go over and under, tucked and untucked, 7.6oz of the fluffiest Japanese denim which has been rinsed, ready for me,
I love Double RL and I love Ralph Lauren. Mr Lauren has shaped the wants and desires, dreams, wardrobes and lives of us all whether subconsciously or in my case very consciously for decades..
He is to my mind one of the great (and there are far fewer than we think) genius’ of the 20th and 21st Century.
Whether you wish to be – and for me it’s often all of the below – a cowboy or a lord; biker; moviestar; overlander; explorer; rock’n’roller or simply the dream heroism of just being your self; 650 Madison has helped get you there.
Dreams but ones comfortable in reality. The smooth for sure, but a little rough too. Twinkling, grit stuck in the oyster and a pearl awaits.
On a Sunday I take the back, back way to get the paper, I look forward to it all week, there is something about the noise that rumble and roll of the old Land Rover, coupled with scent of oil and diesel, windows open in all weather and the shift up, then up again, from second to third, into fourth and finally fifth, it’s a moment of pure mechanical bliss, I feel like a kid again and as I bumpily cruise along, living my dream, elbow out, recently with that denim keeping me from the wind.
Then I get back and undoubtedly, like always, there is something that needs sorting, maybe a level checking, or things in garden moving, maybe I’m in Wales lying on my belly searching for something underground, or cuddling orphaned lamb’s like Larry, maybe just on the beach watching the waves and mind wandering into the sea, all in that denim.
The rough is needed for the smooth to work.
Early in the year, chopping logs and carrying dried ones into the house with Shetland underneath, or maybe quickly tying round neck as I jump out the car a sec.
Or simply in the sunshine and rain, out with the dogs for miles we roam, there is a route and a plan but one that lets the wind take us, but not the rain stop us. Still in that denim.
When mucky, which appears to be an occupational hazard, into the machine it goes and out to dry in the air, flapping on breeze.
Before on my back and in London, meetings, photo taking, lunch having, work doing, sometimes it’s the rather lovely rough to my country smooth, sometimes it’s the other way round.
But there is always both, rough, smooth, peak, trough, you need one for the other to feel like it was all worthwhile.
I see it all over, the western yoke, there for durability, follows that peak and trough, the Southwestern icon Concho button at neck, worn in this South West and Japanese made high-rim snaps the same, peak and troughs.
And the pocket stitching, which first appeared in the ‘Polo Western’ collection Ralph introduced in 1978 and is inspired by the decorative stitching found on toes of cowboy boots, which to my mind echoes the beauty of nature, the wonder of human art, the ups and downs of life, the non linear path we all follow.
It is beautiful, like life, from day one and at the end will present a canvas which tells a story, but a gradual one, because the good stuff isn’t the grand and flashy, rather the little moments which make a wonderful whole.
Which is why great denim is a wonder, it lets you tell your story. It used to be 90 days and then a wash to get a pair of jeans story-telling, set creases, some fades and off we go, a bit longer with a denim jacket, but the weight helps to add to how they age.
With a shirt it’s a little different, firstly, if you actually do things wearing this, which you will, then 90 days before a wash is a no go.
Does that make individual fades a little harder to come by? Perhaps, certainly compared with the overall fading, but first the tips of collar and edge of cuff will lighten, a crease line will appear at neck, then the hem curls and ropes like bumps in the road and the stitching on three snap barrel cuffs will start to rub like ink in water, as you roll sleeves back, the rich indigo blue sneaking out for an appearance.
Then the rest will slowly change and age.
There will be stains, engine oil, pollen from wildflowers, coffee grounds, which will leave the faintest whisper.
You’ll catch it on stuff, I think a horse nicked the top of my pocket, few threads are working loose and there are a few scratches on the back from catching on fences, dog claws, life doing and in time, it’ll look like me.
