Dawson Denim
Considered Design Worth Every Consideration
In the world of heritage style, especially when it comes to fit and value, reviews can be quite helpful, even when little more than personal impressions. We all need a little help with sizing and other matters of fit and construction: heritage seekers know things can go sideways without some help.
With humility, I ask myself what do I really know about design, construction, textiles, leather, and all of the rest that goes into being a maker? Opinions are like [insert]…so I try not to opinionate about everything, much less about things too far beyond meaningful experience.
I may be breaking my own not-a-rule here and though I’ve been wearing denim since at least 1963 and shared my brother’s 501s in 1967. Since at least that time, I’ve had opinions about what I like and why. Experience, made as it of time, is a merciless teacher. Exactly what authority it confers is another matter, right? Here’s just one fella’s opinion with a hefty dose of prolixity as preface.
When Japanese selvedge entered the denim scene in America I was thrilled ‘cause anyone with a past knew that the big US companies were making recently was not much like the quality of our youth. My first sincere forays into Japanese selvedge were with Iron Heart for the weightier offerings and Pure Blue Japan for texture, color, and variation, all sometime around 2010. When I came on Iron Heart’s 634 straight fit and then their even-more-my-style but rarer 1955 fit it, I found jeans closer to my origins and still-current-tastes. Then Dawson happened.
I was browsing my obsessions when in 2020 I came on a reputed London retailer listing Dawson Denim in their Wide Tapered jean fit. (This retailer no longer carries Dawson but Dawson’s own website offers direct purchase with ease. See the link at the bottom.) I had not heard of Dawson before I saw this retailer’s offering but the look just knocked me sideways. Here was a jean I hadn’t honestly imagined and yet appeared to me so natural, so instinctively correct but uncommonplace: I was smitten.
I may have been a wee bit late to the party but I knew immediately I’d found something that suited me. When the jeans arrived, despite my mis-sizing, the enchantment did not diminish, not even a bit for my obvious error. I wore them too tight for a few months before I had to have another pair. More to say about this initial experience in a moment.
Dawson is Kelly Dawson and Scott Ogden. They founded their workshop in Hove on the southern coast of England in 2012. As they put it, “to create a collection of British Made Selvedge Workwear employing traditional techniques of manufacture with unique and considered design. In short, to make clothes that we dreamed of owning ourselves that will age better with time.”
Those “traditional techniques” include the use of proper sewing machines, the perfectly wondrous Reese buttonholer, and other machines that famously occupy the wholly committed to heritage wear. The quality of fabric, thread, and workmanship here can only be justly compared to the most expert work I have witnessed from the finest makers, both in Japan and elsewhere.
I’m going to focus for now only on Dawson’s jean offerings. I’ve also delved deep into their other menswear offerings, including jackets and chinos, but they deserve their own reviews. Suffice to say for now, each rises to the same standard and in each I have found the same care in construction and design, and an extraordinary line of fit options. With just a two-person shop to make these offerings, it’s kind of amazing how much there is but, truth to tell, I wish there were more. Everything offered is that good.
When I see Dawson Demin their “considered design” extends to every feature of the garments, from construction details to their distinctive, genuinely innovative design. I’ve looked closely at seam stitching, rivet placement and lines: everything is where it is supposed to be. You don’t notice much in this respect precisely because there’s that level of correctness. At the same time, I never get the sense that Dawson design means to strike some new chord: this work is not fashion, it is style. It looks at once familiar enough, unemphatic, without ostentation and original, underived, even causative.
Authentic is an overused term these days and in selvedge worlds often refers to replica and tribute styles, but in that sense, Dawson is neither. These are not efforts to be what once was. Rather, Dawson is authentic in the sense of convincing, and even authoritative if by that we mean created with a confidence and clarity of unmistakable intention for form and function. There’s an articulate, palpable salience to the lines taken and the way contours and silhouettes compose to a distinctive shape and manner.
In the Wide Taper jean design, which still seems to me the most Dawson of denims, the frame created by the wider thigh slimming ever so naturally over the knee to a hem that concludes still wider than most straight-legged jeans is, well, and not to overstate it, pure genius.
There has been recently a slight revision to the Wide Taper (now referred to as the Wide Taper New) that adds a wee bit of refinement to the look but the sensibility remains as it has been: something a reminiscent of a sea-worthy, an ever-so slightly natatorial look.
The Navy has, of all the services, always made the fewest sartorial errors and, in fact, manages to care for style when others sacrifice for the banalities of function. The look of this particular Wide Taper fit is unexaggerated, unaffected, it suits function so well that I often wear these jeans at the bookends of my life: in more formal work settings and for relaxation when some might choose leisurely sweats. There is room everywhere you need and, at the same time, avoiding injudicious comment.
If the Wide Taper is not your jam, then the Regular fit hits the true straight jean mark perfectly. While some straight designs take and leave too much, Dawson’s comes to a lineament that looks simply normal. I’m not much personally for Slim fits but even here the Dawson design cuts correctly: the rise is not too low, the thigh is not too, too slim, and the hem uses no exaggerated taper.
I would suspect that Regular and Slim fits would be best sellers given the fashion preferences of the current age but that would be merely my guess. I would say that even for someone like me---perhaps older, more inclined to a relaxed profile akin to a late 50s, early 60s everydayness---even these more “modern” designs could suit me.
But to save the best for last, my heart truly belongs as much to Dawson’s Wide Leg Jean. Here we get a relatively high front rise, a genuinely high rear rise, and a hem opening that follows an open line resolving to a prominent opening. There’s nothing droopy or oversized going on here. There’s no sag or distortion as if to make a fashion statement. Instead, there is a look that closer to the quarterdeck of the convoy escorts during the Battle of the Atlantic. Not meant to be a period piece, the Wide Leg has a cinch buckle back and lines that are, again, appropriate to a seacoast town. Wide Legs look very 1941 but entirely 2023.
In this current season, Kelly and Scott are offering a 16oz Selvedge that follows this early 20th century waist overall design and rear pocket rivet exposures. Most Dawson runs about 14oz and with this 16oz version we are told it is “for the brave, dyed super dark.” I think that caution applies only if one has limited experience with good Japanese selvedge.
This 16oz is stalwart, a raw denim made on the familiar-to-denimheads Toyoda shuttle looms in Japan, but it is not heavy denim. I find it lighter than both Iron Heart’s 14oz and 16oz offerings and after the first rinse to purge starch and reduce crocking potential, this is a comfortable, easy to wear fabric. The potential for fades and distinction is particularly noteworthy.
I would suggest that with the Wide fits, and with this substantial denim, that their high waist rise needs to be fit with that particular dimension in mind. Most men are going to need a bit more waist room with a high rise fit. (This was the cause of my first mis-sizing some years ago: I sized as if I were wearing a relatively low rise jean and the higher rise made them a bit too tight.)
There is going to be as well some marginal shrinkage with the raw 16oz but these are not shrink- to-fit and with wear there will be some stretch wherever there is pressure on the fabric. One can expect as much as 1” in the waist with plenty of wear and then a reversion to close to original size with a cold wash (and never, ever the dryer). I would say that this shrinkage sizing is on par with nearly all sanforized Japanese denim.
As for denim choices, Dawson’s more typical 14-14.5oz offerings have all seemed to me rather nuanced but not at all eccentric. If you’re looking for wild fabric offerings, I’d consider other makers. But that said I have never seen any other denim quite like Dawson. (Confession: I own jeans from at least 10 makers.) If you’re looking for colour and feel that seems to work in any context, Dawson is spot on.
My experience with fading and contrast is quite satisfying though I’m not aiming for any particular result. I wash these jeans when I think they need it and never let them get too dirty. A kind of natural result has been slow fades and occasional pop. I think the quality of the fabric means that you could get quite different results should you try.
Now for this quality of denim there is a price. Dawson is less expensive than high fashion brands, which frankly cannot remotely compare in quality in any respect. If you are at all familiar with the legendary Roy denim (RIEase, Sir, and thank you for your work) or the exquisite Ooe Yofukuten, then you are in Dawson territory.
In a world in which people seem to know the price of everything but value of nearly nothing, I would simply say a pair of Dawson is worth every shilling. I have saved for the “extra” that these jeans cost rather than give in to lesser quality. You’re paying for skill and craft, design and meticulous construction; you’re buying something that will last for years and years and get better with use.
My original pair have been well used and not a stitch, not a seam has been less than perfect. The overall condition of these hard-worn jeans is still excellent, albeit with some lovely fades and nep coming through.
With 14 years now of personal experience with Japanese selvedge denim, I think Dawson can only be compared to the most exceptional work I’ve seen---and that’s saying aplenty. I think we are living in a new golden age of denim, with a dozen or more truly brilliant options, the vast majority of which come from Japan. Dawson is work that has only peers, no superiors.
In my next Dawson review I’ll take up some other trousers, a Engineer’s chore coat made of sashiko fabric, and a Type II denim jacket. But come to think of it, that might require three reviews, one for each.
When you order with Dawson on-line you might have to wait a few weeks since most garments are made on order---but the anticipation is worth the experience and the outcome is something pretty darn wonderful. What you will have is close to bespoke, with that kind of exceptional workmanship that places denim in league with the best English tailors. Now that’s something worth review.