How Did Iron Heart 14oz Come About
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The creation of the 14oz denim was discussed elsewhere recently, I thought it would be interesting to articulate how it came about in a dedicated thread. It's actually hard to quantify how important this story is with regards to the Iron Heart that you see today
It's quite a convoluted story, but it was very easy.
A couple of things happened at very similar times.
Firstly Haraki had launched a large seasonal collection for Triple Works. It was full of amazing stuff including a 14oz indigo denim jean. We were in Tokyo showing the collections (Iron Heart and Triple works) to our retailers. and If we were doing that, then it was a long time ago, The Clutch show in Yokohama basically put paid to what was a twice yearly pilgrimage to Tokyo with retailers to see the next seasons collections. As per norm back then, Haraki would host a dinner for the retailers, I was chatting to one of our larger retailers and asked him what he thought of the TW collection. He said that it was amazing, but that he would not buy any of it because he did not need the hassle of having another Works Inc brand and not knowing how to articulate the difference between IH and TW (to be fair, Haraki never satisfactorily explained the difference, thus nor could I - I made up a few things, but they all seemed forced and slightly bullshitty). I took Haraki upstairs for a chat and a smoke and with no hope of success explained the problem (I had been rooting for TW to be merged with IH for ages, but always got a hard no from H). To my utter amazement, he basically said "No problem, we will drop TW and merge it with IH". I needed smelling salts, not just a smoke at that point....
So that was the beginning of the story, lighter weight stuff would be made under the IH name.
The second key thing to happen was "The Great IHSH-101 and 102tg disaster". The outpouring of love and support we got for doing that recall was humbling and with comments such as "even the worse of these was better than some brands best efforts", I started to understand that people were buying us as much, if not more, for our quality than for heaviness of our fabrics. The next time I saw H, I explained my epiphany, and said that perhaps our tagline should change from "We never do light", to "We never do crap". After he had finished laughing, I said, so can we start making the 14oz as a core IH denim (expecting the usual hard no)? He said yes. More smelling salts needed.
These were both pivotal moments in the genesis of the brand you see now. And in point of fact, in both cases Haraki did not need a lot of persuading. It's difficult to describe how hard it is to keep on knocking on a closed Japanese door, but because I am thick skinned and stupid, I did keep trying, but it was always with a great deal of trepidation.
As you allude to Reuben, he did change the weft from single strand to twist double to make the 14oz more Iron Hearty. And that is what we have today.
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@Giles said in How Did Iron Heart 14oz Come About:
I started to understand that people were buying us as much, if not more, for our quality than for heaviness of our fabrics.
This is 100% true in my case, and what puts Iron Heart in a league of its own.
(I do love the heavy fabrics, but the main point for me is the overall quality) -
Awesome story. Love to hear about behind scenes details of our beloved IH.
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@ARNC said in How Did Iron Heart 14oz Come About:
For some reason, I’m imagining Stevie @Oaktavia reading stuff like this to the little oak rather than traditional bedtime stories
Little Oak! I'm dead
...we did choose Hickory for his middle name though.I loved this read, how it is written and it's topic. Now do 25oz origin story! @Giles
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I love hearing about these stories, especially in the earlier days. I could only imagine the " I made up a few things, but they all seemed forced and slightly bullshitty" has happened once or twice more and just makes it all the better
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@Giles
At the risk of turning this into the "Ask anything thread" - do you find that 14 is essentially a gateway drug for your customers? They start on the 14 in one cut, find that they are way better than other stuff and wonder: just how good can 18 / 21 / 25 be!? And then the journey begins! -
@seawolf said in How Did Iron Heart 14oz Come About:
Maybe we need a dedicated "Iron Heart Lore" thread.
Yes!!!!
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HOW DID IRON HEART XX COME ABOUT
Beatiful idea @GilesSo many great IH stories that should be find in one place/book/podcast.
- From the ‘IHD-01 - Special G Denim Version’ to the CPO line
- Shuttle-loom woven flannel with a skew made into the glorious IHSH-129
- The lost and found weaver for the UHF
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