It’s painful, it’s expensive, it requires serious perseverance and if you’re not careful, it might just become something of an addiction. No, not bondage. This is something far less raunchy, yet every bit as daunting to attempt as a beginner. Welcome to the world of raw denim.

Just like quantum physics, Bitcoin and CrossFit, raw denim is something that you’ve almost certainly heard of, but probably still struggle to fully comprehend. And it’s no wonder. It’s probably the most difficult thing in menswear to wrap your head around – aside from perhaps Kanye West’s enduring status as a style icon.

You see, regular jeans don’t come with an instruction manual, but then regular jeans are just regular jeans. And if you’re the sort of guy who’s into denim trends or always striving to add that extra something to his look, a pair of beautifully worn raw denim jeans could be exactly what you never knew you needed.

What Is Raw Denim?

When you head down to the high street to pick up a new pair of jeans, the ones you take off the hanger will have been through more cosmetic procedures than an ageing Hollywood A-lister. They’ll have been dyed, washed, distressed, shrunk, stretched and all the rest of it, whereas raw denim is subjected to none of this bar the dyeing process. It’s taken straight off the loom (the machine on which the fabric is spun), sewn into something leg- or jacket-shaped and sold to you.

Levi’s

So why are you paying several times the price for something that has required less work? The answer is you’re not. Raw denim jeans are often made in small batches, by experienced hands, in high-cost labour countries like Japan and America. On top of that, they’re built to withstand a battering, using premium materials that far surpass the quality of their mass-market equivalents.

Unbranded