The Past is My Only Future
The Patina Years Have Arrived
30 March 2025
It’s been awhile and it’s not as if my opinions on these matters garners much attention. So much the better. I can write with both candor and honesty even in this era in which both could use a refresh.
I think I’ve purchased my last two pairs of jeans. It’s been a good run. These last two pair are the result of a long trial and (many many) errors. Iron Heart and Ooe Yofukuten make some Last Word sorta’ stuff. I like the simple straight fits. IH calls this their 1955 fit which means I was only -2 years old when this was cool. Like the Ooes’, which are supposed to be a 40’s style, they aren’t appreciably different from denim that was as my staple as a 70s teenager.
I tried the slim fits when they were All That but it didn’t stick. I returned to my to the days of future past and now it seems the fashion is back to straight and wide fits. It really is true: if you live long enough the old stuff is new again.
This endgame sounds definitive, even a bit maudlin but could well be true.
First, I’ve been on this Amekaji bender close on 20 years, likely made every possible mistake in sizing, style, you name it for wasting time and money, and the result is that I’m pretty happy with where it has all landed. I’m not chasing style anymore.
Is it too much to say you know what you like? I don’t think my style has changed much since 1975 when I left for college. (Okay, okay, so we all had a bad 80s and 90s—-too many Miami Vice espadrilles and oversized Armani suits.)
Being (something of) a hoarder (I prefer “archivist”), I’ve sorted it out, done the collecting, and provided I don’t need more than the current “fit” and “fat boy” pair there’s a rotation now. There’s just no way I’m going to wear out this stuff.
I feel much the same way about the boot “journey” but like the leather jackets, there might still be room for one or two more. It doesn’t bother me to buy them so much as it feels like an injustice to the leather itself not to… to wear them—-just not enough time. I wish I had another 40 years just to see how they all turn out.
So these are my Patina Years. I’ve no intention of ending up in sweatpants and slippers calling some lovely nursing home aide “Mama”. Better a tall bottle of Jack, a dwindling winter fire in the woods: fall asleep, let’em find you in spring. Well, unless you gotta a better plan. I want to die not only with my boots on but in a pair of fine selvedge and one of those leather jackets.
I recall my first selvedge denim when that was the only kind Wrangler made. It was sometime in the middle 60s. We didn’t have much and my mom shopped for me at Sears when I didn’t fit my brother’s hand me downs.
I remember some killer fades and honeycombs though we didn’t call them that, neither were we trying. I wore those jeans way too big and cuffed up for at least two months straight—- because they were the only pants I had that fit even a little. But I was glad to have them and took care of my stuff. It wasn’t clear when there’d be another pair.
Maybe growing up thin on choices is a reason my closet is full now. But I still take care of all my things—-not just the denim, I’m an archivist for a living with about 5,000 printed books in our home library. No one will want them when I’m gone (unless you read Sanskrit) but I’m thinking the denim, boots, and leathers might just be breaking in. The past is my only future.