The denim jacket I featured in our article a couple of weeks ago was second-hand and clearly in need of repair when I bought it (from Union Fade in Milan, which I’d highly recommend by the way).
The fades on the jacket were incredible, as it had been worn from raw and barely washed. But that often means increased fraying and cracking too, as the material remains stiff for longer. The collar, for example, had a long crack down the fold line, with various pieces of frayed denim coming off it. Some people like that, but it’s not my style.
So I took it to David Claxton, who runs his own denim workshop called Claxies and did an incredible job on my blanket chore last year (below). I don’t use the word ‘incredible’ in an empty, influencer way, by the way: it really was amazing how he rewove the material and adjusted the pocket configuration.
David’s work on this jacket and two others I brought him was no less thorough. “Simon’s vintage Type-III had obviously been worn hard, with much of the cotton top-stitching being reinforced by other tailors over the years,” says David. “In my time restoring denim I’ve probably worked on 50 of these Type-IIIs, and they almost all needed the same jobs: either the sleeves required shortening (not an issue for Simon) or the back of the collar had blown out.
“The latter problem is unique to this model, and rarely occurs with Types I and II. It isn’t an issue with the Type-III from the 1980s onwards either. After that Levi’s stopped cutting such a full collar on their Type-IIIs and moved towards a wider shape, with narrower pocket flaps. While the older models have that iconic look of a sharp, more pronounced collar, the friction with the back of the neck is what causes this type of damage.”
Often these collars are repaired by simply taking them off, flipping them round and reattaching. The problem with that is that the underside is now the topside, and my underside was deep indigo, very different to the rest of the jacket. So instead David opened it up and put a new lining inside, before sewing it closed again.
“Because the collar makes such a difference to comfort, I didn’t make the repair too heavy, using just a lightweight fabric pinned to the inside of the top collar. That means it will be more supple and sit more naturally.”
Apparently the hardest part of the repair is keeping that lining fabric steady, while you sew around the edges with something like a old-fashioned darning machine. “It’s a free-moving machine, so the stitch length and direction are very much down to how steady your hands are. There’s no guide,” says David.
He then left about 1cm of the lining fabric loose around the frayed area, where the collar folds, before closing up the collar. The fold is reinforced, but no topstitching is visible from the outside.
The Type III was pretty straightforward compared to the second piece I took David though – a vintage 1950s work jacket from Hercules.
This should really be a museum piece, it’s so heavily worn. The denim in a lot of places is simply thin from use. But I was determined to make it wearable if I could – and then wear it lightly over the years to come, as a special piece rather than every day.
“You don’t see many pieces of denim workwear from this period in the flesh, and this example has certainly been put through its paces,” says David. “A few holes have appeared in places of stress, while pocket mouths and bags have fallen away over time.
“But without question the biggest problem is the disintegration of the original thread. And the vast majority of the seams have been sewn with a three-needle chainstitch machine, which is typical of this type of mass produced workwear of the early-to-mid 20th century.”
So David had to pull out any chain threads that remained, and then resew most of the jacket using something as close to the original thread and process as possible. Or actually – not the original thread, but something slightly lighter as otherwise it would look too new, shiny white rather than faded like the rest of the jacket.
He then also redid the collar in the same way as the Type III, and darned the cuffs, pockets and waistband to reinforce them. The result was again remarkable – to me the jacket looked almost exactly the same as at the start, just stronger and wearable. An expert would notice the repair work, but I doubt anyone else would.
I can see some people asking why it was worth bothering then – why do all that work and spend all that time, when the end result looks almost exaclty the same?
The answer is that it saves a piece of denim clothing that is both very beautiful (subjectively) and highly unusual (objectively). You can’t replicate denim like this with washes, or even with years of wear in person. It takes decades, and if the way denim fades and ages is something you love, this is just gorgeous. Easily worth spending the £160 repair fee on for me, and worth spending the time on it, for David.
The last job was a very small one by comparison – sewing the hem of the French workwear jacket I featured on PS last year.
I love that jacket, but it was always a little short on me (as a lot of vintage workwear is). I had let down the hem to add another couple of centimetres, but simply ironed it flat, awaiting an expert to make the change permanent.
“This piece offered us the opportunity to try something different,” says David. “The material had become rather lightweight over time, so we decided to not just finish the hem but also use a heavier cotton-twill fabric as a false hem on the inside, both reinforcing it and adding weight. It allows the jacket to fall in a more natural way, and means the facing for the outer can be as discreet as possible.”
David has given a new lease of life to all three jackets – though particularly the Hercules, which would probably never have been worn again otherwise.
The work for the three jackets cost £75, £160 and £45 respectively. David is @Claxies.Official on Instagram and is best contacted through there as well.
You can see his previous repair on my blanket chore coat here.
