Affiliate disclaimer: We work with most brands and retailers featured and earn commission on purchases.
This Week: Where to Buy Raw Denim, Which Tellasons to Choose, and What I’m Building Next
It’s an exciting time to be running Denimhunters. After 15 years, the site is now generating enough revenue that, if the growth continues, it could become the only work I need to do to make my living. I almost can’t believe it!
There are still challenges ahead. I wrote about Google’s AI Mode in a previous issue, and I want the site to become even more useful, more practical, and harder to replace with a quick summary.
But honestly, I mostly feel energised. I still love researching, writing, improving old guides, building new ones, and trying to make Denimhunters better for the people who actually use it; people like you.
That’s what happened last Thursday. I started building a tool that had been sitting in the back of my mind for years, and once I started, I couldn’t let it go. And that’s not even all I’ve done this week.
In This Issue of the DH Weekly
- SOSO adds eight new selvedge denims to the Advanced Builder
- Bryan explains Tellason’s fits and Kaihara denims in a jeans guide
- My new denim shop guides are live—you can check them here
- I’d like your input on another tool I want to build
Get DH Weekly in Your Inbox
I publish DH Weekly every Friday with new guides, product stories, denim news, and behind-the-scenes notes from Denimhunters. Join the list and get the next issue by email.
SOSO’s Builder Is Where You Can Go Crazy
Sweden’s SOSO Brothers has added eight new selvedge denims to its Advanced Builder, ranging from an 8 oz. chambray to a 17 oz. yellow-core selvedge. But the interesting bit isn’t just the fabrics. It’s where they live.
If you’ve been on SOSO’s site recently, you may have noticed that the regular shop and the Builder are now separate things. I reached out to Johan and asked him to explain the difference.
The short version is this:
- The regular shop is the safe zone. You still get the custom-made garments SOSO is known for, but in a more guided setup.
- The Builder is where you get the full menu: more fabrics, more details, more freedom, and—importantly—more responsibility.
If you know exactly what you want, the Builder lets you go much further. If you don’t, the regular shop is probably still the better place to start. Customisation is great when it solves a problem. It’s less great when it simply gives you 47 ways to make a decision you weren’t sure about in the first place.
Of the new denims, the ones that caught my eye are the 15 oz. Snow Nep Indigo, the 11.5 oz. stretch selvedge, and the 8 oz. indigo chambray. But if you’re after something wilder, there’s also a 12 oz. selvedge with a “Rainbow Candy” weft.
Because apparently denim can still surprise us.
Tellason Jeans, Explained
Tony Patella and Pete Searson are well-known names in the raw denim scene—surely familiar to most Denimhunters readers. Their San Francisco brand has been part of our world for years.
We’ve written about Tellason many times before, including a recent product story. But we haven’t done a proper guide to their jeans. Until now.
After nearly two decades, Tellason has built a solid range around three Japanese Kaihara selvedge denims: a lighter option for comfort and easy wear, a middleweight all-rounder, and a heavier denim with more structure and stronger fade potential. Those fabrics are available across a wide fit selection.
In the guide, Bryan breaks down the main options—from straight and slim straight to slim tapered, wide, and narrow tapered—and explains who they’re likely to work for.
The Shop Guide I’ve Always Wanted
Buying raw denim used to be hard because there weren’t many places to buy it. Now it’s hard for the opposite reason.
There are more brands, more retailers, more webshops, more regional specialists, more Instagram-famous stockists, and more small shops doing genuinely good work than ever before. And that’s great! But it also means that finding the right place to buy your next pair of jeans can take longer than expected.
Especially if you’re new to this. Or if you’re buying from another country. Or if you need hemming. Or if you’re trying to figure out whether a shop actually knows what it’s doing, or just happens to have the right brands on the shelf.
This is the guide I’ve wanted Denimhunters to have for years. Last Thursday, I started building it. At first, I thought I’d spend a day or two researching, organising a few ideas, and maybe getting a rough draft together. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop until it was done.
What began as one simple guide on where to buy raw denim turned into an entire series covering North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and even a separate guide on how to buy raw denim online without making expensive mistakes.
Shipped Is Better Than Perfect
The first days went into figuring out what the guides should actually be.
One huge directory? Separate regional guides? Short shop entries or longer descriptions? Should partner shops get longer descriptions? Should I try to cover everything, or start with the places I could reasonably stand behind?
Every time I finished one section, I thought of another shop, another country, another detail, another way to improve it. I could easily have spent another week or two researching, polishing, expanding, and second-guessing.
That’s how useful projects get stuck. So I published it. The guides are not “perfect”. But they’re live, they’re useful, and they now have somewhere to grow from.
Did I Miss Your Favourite Denim Shop?
I’ve listed 120+ shops so far, and I’ll surely add more. This is where I could use your help.
You know your part of the world better than I do. Your country, your state, your city, your neighbourhood—unless you also live in Hørsholm, north of Copenhagen, in Denmark, in Europe—in which case you should come by for coffee.
So if one of your favourite denim shops is missing, tell me.
Not just any shop with jeans on the wall. I’m looking for the places you’d actually recommend. Shops with good brands, good advice, proper hemming, decent service, fair shipping, or people behind the counter who understand what they’re selling.
That’s what I’m trying to build here. Not just a list of stockists, but a guide that helps people find the right place to buy.
Finding Jeans Online Should Be Easier
There are more good brands, more good retailers, and more detailed product pages than ever. But that hasn’t made shopping for jeans online easier.
Because how will the fit look on you? Which size should you get? Who has the best price? Who offers hemming? What happens if you need to return them? And what will the denim actually look like after six months of wear?
That’s the kind of uncertainty I’ve always wanted Denimhunters to help solve. The new shop guides help you find the right place to buy. But there’s another resource I’ve wanted to build for a long time: a proper jeans finder.
The idea would be to use my curation and recommend trusted brands and retailers, “translating” all the information out there into something useful: which fits to consider, where to buy them, what to be careful about, and why one option might make more sense for you than another.
Before I make the investment to build this, I’d love your input: When you shop for jeans online, what usually makes the decision difficult?
The post Why I’ve Started Mapping the World’s Best Raw Denim Shops appeared first on Denimhunters.
DENIM and PATCHES sourced this post originally published on this site