Review: Triple Aught Design Denim

As an American, few fabrics are as much of an institution as denim. It’s the workhorse of our wardrobe that can easily dress up or down while retaining the more rugged, utility driven nature of our culture. I’m a massive proponent of a good pair of jeans for daily living. I walk miles a day in them, fall asleep (much to my wife’s chagrin) plenty in them, road trip in them, fly in them - you get the picture.

For years I stuck to darker or medium wash denim. I liked the more formal nature of the fabric in those colorways and hardly strayed from them. At the time I was still working in an office and dressed the jeans up - after all - while I was in an office, I was working in the corporate team of a firearms retail chain, so my marketing work ended up putting me forward of the firing line to take photos, assembling guns, or whatnot. I loved my chinos but just didn’t feel like they fit the role well, so didn’t wear them often. Dark denim - that served the role.

At one point, after moving on and beginning to work from home, my wife told me I looked good in lighter jeans, and that they suited me better for daily wear. That, combined with my discovery of MAGNUM P.I. thanks to Jack Carr (as an aside, I still can’t believe my parents never once mentioned Magnum to their kid who watched M*A*S*H and THE A-TEAM religiously) was enough prompting to give lighter denim a serious go.

I never really looked back.

The light wash denim became the base of every single day. Sunspel polos, field shirts, knitwear, whatever. It all just was a top layer to the denim below. Inevitably, I began trying to find a “good” pair of jeans to fill the role, I was wearing them literally every single day, and tearing the cheaper pairs of Levi’s to shreds in a matter of months, walking the dog and later my son, for miles daily in between tasks.

For a while, I was relatively happy with the Levi’s 501ST. It was a light wash, pure cotton jean that was a lightly tapered 501 cut. But even those wore out too quickly, rubbing threadbare in the seat or in other high friction areas, despite sizing up as all Levi’s wearers do and ensuring that the thighs weren’t tight. After two expensive pairs fell apart, I went my most traditional route with Ebay, sourcing near mint 1990’s, made in Mexico 501’s. These have held up reasonably well, forming holes around the pocket seams, nothing I can’t patch easily and conceal, but the vintage denim market is a hellscape thanks to the poor offerings on the market today, and I don’t really want to spend my free time looking for jeans nonstop.

Nor am I a denim junkie that wants to spend the better part of a few years wearing in my jeans to the perfect fade. I just want a pair I can buy and wear, and call it a day.

My friends over at Triple Aught Design recently launched the next two iterations of their jeans with updated fits, fabrics, and washes, and, knowing my struggle to find a good pair, were kind enough to send both along for me to try out. In the bottom half of this article, I have my objective review of the first pair, including modifications made to one set to better fit my wash preferences.

I’ve worn an assortment of TAD pieces over the last three years since seeing them in one of Jack Carr’s novels, and I’ve loved every piece. Few brands are doing real American made things anymore, so that being combined with quality construction and good fabrics has made them one of my go-to brands for shopping recently. But aside from an older pair of their jeans, I hadn’t taken the plunge on their trousers really, I’ve traditionally worn their field shirts, jackets, and knitwear. But these new jeans were a chance to try to add TAD to my daily wardrobe in a new manner.

Both pairs are dramatically different in fabric and style. The first were the closest to what I had been searching for - a light wash pair of cotton jeans, although they’d take a little modification to get to the color I was after. While I’ll cover both pairs in the future, this article will discuss the lighter weight Kurabo denim, which is now my summer-weight companion jean after my changes discussed below.

• Japanese Kurabo Indigo 11oz Denim

• 99% Cotton / 1% Elastane

• Lariat Blue, Western inspired dyed denim

• TAD Intercept pockets - standard five pocket design plus two rear yoke pockets & additional coin pocket in front for CCW

• Construction - Triple and Double Needle Top Stitching

• Link - https://tripleaughtdesign.com/products/intercept-se-pant-kurabo-11oz-indigo

As mentioned above, I have a previous pair of the Intercept jeans from a few years back, and found these to be a dramatically improved fit. My older pair, a great set that I’ve used in my shop for gunsmithing projects - the weight of the pant is such that it keeps metal flakes out of my legs - were fitted in the thigh but dramatically looser in the lower leg. I loved the construction and triple seam design, and didn’t expect any local seamstress to be able to replicate it - so these got relegated to hard use vs daily wear.

This new pair fit much more like the 501 classic style I like, a reasonably fitted thigh with a relaxed and straight lower leg, without any stacking. The lighter weight, 11oz denim suits my year round preferences as well.

THE JEANS

I also have to say, the TAD pocket layout is my favorite I’ve ever encountered on denim. The upper rear pockets carry my cell phone and wallet well, and high enough on my seat that I’m not sitting directly on either. That also means both of the larger rear patch pockets remain open. I typically carry a Field Notes journal in a leather cover with a Parker Jotter pen, and in the same back pocket as my wallet, making accessing the wallet less than efficient at times. I appreciate the separation. On the front end, the two larger coin pockets do similar things - my keys rest in one and my Swiss Army Knife (or a lighter if I’m out with friends for a cigar) in the other, again, leaving the main body pockets open and available.

It was the wash I struggled with. My wife, upon first try on, called me Sheriff Woody. It’s a fair assessment, after all, the color, “Lariat Blue” was specifically chosen as a nod to the classic western style jeans many enjoy, wear hard, and break in. But the bright, electrifying blue wasn’t something I thought I could make work on me, least of all because everytime I looked at them I started whistling Woody’s Roundup. Part of me wanted to keep them this blue, after all, it’s a timeless American look - but I don’t think I’ll ever be rocking these with “playing with the boys” blasting on the beach with my wingman. If the opportunity arises, I know where to go for the standard wash.

So, with that, I turned to modification.

I began by first washing and attempting to use a diluted bleach solution (1/4 cup of bleach to 1 gallon of cold water). The DIY article from Clorox and my research on denim forums seemed to say the wash would lighten in 2 minutes, with serious changes happening over MAYBE a 10 minute period. But the tightly woven Japanese denim refused to release any of its color after a full 30 minutes. So, I pulled them from the solution, hung them outside, and hosed them off to ensure the solution was removed from the fabric, and began the next option - sun fading the jeans.

After two full weeks on my back deck, being flipped over once daily to give both sides ample chance to fade, no serious changes had been made. The hope, in addition to potentially fading the jeans, was softening the fabric to make another bleach bath more successful. It should also be established that I let them get poured on a good half dozen times in heavy summer storms, leaving them out after to be air dried.

To add to nature’s efforts, I finally took to sandpaper about a week in to soften and distress the jeans with a 220 grit paper. That seemed to help slightly, and I decided that after another wash I’d go ahead and hit them again with the bleach.

And yet, they persisted. I made up 2 gallons of water and half a cup of bleach, soaked the jeans, and saw no change in the first 10 minutes. After two weeks of light modifications and gentle adjustments, I did the only thing I could do. Like a mechanic finally giving in to a stubborn bolt by taking the heat to the damn thing, I filled my five gallon bucket to its maximum, and dumped the full thing of bleach, 1.25 quarts, into the mixture. A full 45 minutes went by, with me drawing the denim out every five minutes or so to shuffle them around, and provide a more even application of the mixture, and finally, FINALLY, the Japanese denim was defeated and my preferred color was achieved. They were quickly hung, hosed down, and air dried before being machine washed one last time.

I’m terribly happy with the results. I love the TAD construction, the robust nature of their garments make them ones you enjoy using, because you know full well they’ll last. And I really loves seeing those details accented in a classic light wash. I’m only a few days deep into these, breaking them in during a heavy heat wave in the Midwest, but the fibers are loosening nicely after all that washing, drying, rain, and hosing, and are breaking into a soft and comfortable pair of jeans.

Perhaps someday I’ll succeed in convincing them that a light wash would be a legendary offering. Until then, always the tinkerer, I’m delighted to have these on hand.