Nine Months into the Denim Debate, and these 3Sixteens are finding their legs. Over the weekend, I attended the NorthernGRADE Men’s Market in Minneapolis, and Ryan Plett, overseer of the DD, photographed the masterpieces Andrew Chen and his 3Sixteen crew have created — and I have destroyed.

They’ve whiskered nicely. I can pull them on and off without unbuttoning a button. The tack is all baconed. I use the hell out of my pockets. I cuff them to show off the selvage. Yesterday, a suit maker in Chicago, a master tailor, commented on the jeans. “They’re nice.” He mused. “Good fit. Tight in the calves, but I bet you like that.” He wrote down, “THREE SIXTEEN,” before I corrected him, “3Sixteen.” Get it right. They sure did.

After a night on the town in late March, where a friend spilled a fresh Bud Light all over my left leg, I’d had it. The jeans smelled. I washed them inside out, in a Maytag, cold water, with Cheer. I dried them inside out, in a Maytag, on high, with Bounce. The results? Not bad. Lost some color. Lost that shine. The fabric over the fly is now permanently wrinkled, revealing the buttons of my fly, but, Dude, they fit well, and more importantly, they don’t smell.

Pre Wash:

Post Wash:

However, with the advent of the Denim Debate, I felt slightly more comfortable voicing my opinions because it would be in concert with a collection of friends. To truly understand my initial impressions, though, it’s imperative I share a bit of my history with the fabric. I asked my parents who made the first pair of jeans they bought for me, and they replied, “Osh-Kosh overalls and Lee jeans.” Lee was big in my house. I remember seeing the S pocket long before seeing Levi’s wing pocket. My father would proudly display the “Lee” patch, sliding his hand-tooled cowboy belt behind it. By the time I reached high school, I owned a single pair of Gap jeans which I remember buying on a family road trip to Montreal. It took leaving the country for me to understand the true allure of denim. The cute Gap girls with their even cuter French accents were, I assure you, what did it.

In college, after two weeks of rocking my beat-to-hell A&F khakis, it became abundantly clear I needed some jeans. Bootcuts were cool. Gap‘s “Mellow Yellow” commercial was everywhere. I bought a pair of 1969 jeans and a pair of jeancut cords. They called me Mellow Yellow.

By the time I reached New York in 2004, I’d rediscovered my first pair of jeans, the Lee Denvers with their yellow selvage line. While in my graduate program in New York City, I noticed a girl — not another guy, a girl in my class — wearing a really cool pair of jeans. It was the hardware, that big domed button, that did it. “Hey Crystal, where’d you get those jeans?” She smiled, “They’re APC. My friend works there. Do you want a pair? I can see if I can get a deal.” I’m never one to pass up a discount. Yes, I said. She helped me into my first pair of APCs, the New Cure. They were all wrong. The fly was too long, the leg was too long, and once they stretched, the waist hung ridiculously low. But I learned a valuable lesson about wear. These were exactly what I was looking for. I was sick of having some factory in Kentucky wear my jeans in for me. I wanted to do it. They moved with me. They whiskered where I sat. My cell phone wore a square hole in the front left pocket. They became a part of me.

Four pair later (two Hipster, two New Standards), APC had become my daily drivers. And I mean daily. Fortunately, I never worked a job with the same finicky high school dress code. I wore those suckers every single day. I was aware of the denim culture. I knew the name of at least two mills. I had a bit of the history in my back pocket. Indigo began to run in my blood. I’ve always wanted to try a different pair, but I found something that worked. They weren’t the most expensive, they fit well, and people constantly asked me where I got them (always a sure sign something is working well).

I hesistated to leave the kiddie pool. Dip my toe in the ocean of premium denim constantly crashing against itself out there. Mr. Plett is my captain. He’s steering this ship. I’m just his first mate.

When he first invited me to participate in this project, knowing my relative novice status, I said, “I’m going to wear the originals: Levi’s 501s. Shrink-to-Fits.” I thought, let’s see how they differ from these heavier hitters. Then, I reached out to Levi’s. They turned me down. Said they wouldn’t be interested. I assumed they were afraid of being pitted against far more expensive jeans. Higher quality fabrics.

Next I headed to the NYC outpost of the popular San Francisco shop SelfEdge and took my girlfriend with me. After trying on a few sanforized pair, with her approval, I settled on the 3sixteen STs. After telling him about my problem with blown out crotches (I’ve had all my APCs repaired by Denim Therapy, who lost a pair in the mail and refused to refund my money, let alone replace the jeans. Needless to say, I am not a fan of Denim Therapy anymore). Andrew told me, “They’re a lot like your APCs, but with a bit more room in the hips and crotch.”

The STs, 3sixteen’s flagship denim, come in a raw indigo fabric sourced from Japan’s Kaihara Mill. The ST is cut lean from toe to tum. Embellishments include a custom 3sixteen logo button, rivets, a natural tan leather patch by Tanner Goods, and stitching details which illustrate some serious reinforcing of the back pockets. The fly is off-center, which forces the belt loops closer to the fly and leaves little room for my Leatherman Ltd. Trace Carrier buckle.

The yoke is nice. Brings the back pockets up on my butt, which my girlfriend,  a one time denim designer, liked. I wore them at first with a pretty heavy cuff, two inches. Wanted to wear them in a bit before I hemmed them. When pulling them off, the leg below the knee gets caught on my water polo calves. If I kick them off just right, they stand up, straight in the air like a couple of leaning towers.

When Ryan gave the green light, I started wearing them. I remember their initial shine. Shinier than those other sanforized pair I tried on. I remember wanting to eat Cheetos and rub my fingers on my pant legs. And then it happened. “Hey man, where’d you get your jeans?” I’d tell them. “Like John 3:16?” I told them I didn’t know. They said they liked them. My local barista. A pimply-faced kid at a stodgy, old men’s clothing store in Minnesota. An L.A.-based actor at a pizza parlor in Chicago with carpet on the walls. A girl at a bar in Cleveland. A woman at a restaurant in Kansas City actually took down my information so that she could e-mail me and I could tell her husband why he needed to try these jeans. She did it, too.

They’re attention-getters. They’re attractive. They’re anything but Mellow Yellow.