Avre Friday Briefing #57
Denim Shawl Collar Shirt - Why we Pre-Wash
Raw Denim
Batch No. 3 in its raw, pre-washed state
All denim starts off raw. It's how the cloth comes off the loom and how it's received by the manufacturer at the start of the production process. Once the garment is finished, functionally there's nothing left to do, that shirt or pair of jeans could be worn from that point onwards — and that's exactly how some brands choose to market and sell their products. However, turning raw denim into something that's easily wearable day-to-day takes dedication. The payoff is that you get something that is truly unique to you and the way you wear your clothes.
But breaking in denim is a process and takes time. Raw denim is stiff; the fibres haven't had time to soften, so when they rub against each other, they cause more abrasion than with pre-washed denim. As the denim is worn and washed, the indigo dye slowly breaks down at the folds and develops a unique patina, which is yours and yours alone, but this takes time — even in jeans.
The Flat Head’s legendary 14.5 oz. Pioneer Denim, unsanforized on the left. Fully broken in on the right.
Raw denim is also subject to shrinkage, but quite how much depends on whether it's sanforized (pre-shrunk) or unsanforized (shrink-to-fit) — it could be anything from 1-10%. For unsanforized garments, wearing them in the bath, or even going for a swim in the sea is often recommended. So when buying raw, you have to factor the shrinkage in to account and buy oversized.
Pre-Washed
The other option — vastly preferable for most — is to go with pre-washed. The process does a number of things. Firstly it removes the shrinkage meaning what you receive is what you keep. There's no guesswork involved — if it fits when you first try it on, then great, that's the fit you'll keep forever.
Avre Batch No. 3. - 13.75oz Pre-washed denim
Secondly, the wash accelerates the conversation between the indigo dyed warp and the undyed weft beneath. The weft is a lighter thread which you can see as flecks. When you wash raw denim, you'll use domestic machine cycles, but commercial pre-washing is different. It involves a combination of multiple pre-washing methods, often using different concentrations of enzymes to achieve whatever finish the brand is looking for. The combination of cycles is called a Recipe.
The Recipe we chose for Batch No. 3 is relatively simple — 3 separate cycles, each with a slightly different mix of enzymes designed to deliver a deep indigo top colour with the lighter weft showing through, and beautifully soft handfeel.
We love the raw denim tradition, but for Batch No. 3 we chose pre-washed. What you see is what you get. We hope you love it.
In this image, you can see the raw denim beneath and three different test Recipes on top. The one we chose for Batch No. 3 is on the right.
Batch No. 3 — Finished garment in un-washed raw denim on the left; post-wash on the right.
Vat 01 Design Part 5: The Case
We were talking last week about layers in packaging. Our view is that unboxing is an important part of the process when you buy something new. How the packaging feels when you first get it into your hands gives you an immediate impression of how you're going to relate to the actual product within. There's a reason that Apple have beautifully simple and tactile packaging — sight, smell and touch are all firing signals to your brain telling you that there's something worth having inside.
Our whisky goes one further adding taste into the mix. But before you even see the bottle, let alone taste the liquid within, you encounter its case which is our representation of a military ammunition crate.
These were never designed to be beautiful, they were designed to be portable, durable and accessible. Constructed from various materials including metal, cheap pine or spruce they were sometimes reinforced at the corners with pressed steel hardware and fitted with rope or metal handles handles for fast and easy movement under fire. They were rectangular for ease of stacking — it's a purely functional design. The contents were described in bold, sans-serif lettering, visible in poor light allowing soldiers to know calibre and quantities easily.
The case for our Operation Chariot whisky borrows directly from that visual language. Raw wood, rope handle and stamped lettering. It allows you to easily understand the contents, despite the light conditions (or your state of mind).
On This Day - The Battle of Montese
17th April 1945
Brazilian soldiers at the Battle of Montese. 14-17 April 1945
Eighty years ago this week, in the hills of Emilia-Romagna in Italy, Brazilian soldiers completed the liberation of a small Italian commune called Montese.
The battle had begun on 14th April, when the 1st Division of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force — the FEB — attacked through terrain fortified as part of the Gothic Line. They were the only Allied division to reach their planned objective on the first day of the offensive. What followed was three days of brutal fighting. The Germans, believing Montese to be the primary Allied objective in the sector, directed 1,800 artillery rounds against the Brazilian positions — out of just 2,800 fired across the entire front.
Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) shoulder sleeve insignia (Army component) with a smoking snake
By the time mopping-up operations concluded on 17th April, the cost was enormous. Around 430 Brazilian casualties, 189 Italian civilians killed and 833 of the commune's 1,121 houses destroyed. It remains the bloodiest battle fought by Brazil on foreign soil since the Paraguayan War of the 1860s.
The commune of Montese has never forgotten. One of its central squares is named Piazza Brasile — Brazil Square. The anthem of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force is still taught in local schools and sung by the children of the region today.
Eighty years on, it is worth reflecting that a South American nation sent its sons to the hills of northern Italy to fight for the liberation of people they had never met. And those people, three generations later, are still teaching their children about their sacrifice.