Indi

About the fabric:

Our black denim is a mid weight 11.5 oz fabric in 100% cotton. The Sable wash is slightly darker than the Black Slate and the Black Slate a little softer than the Sable.

Style Suggestions:

In case you’re already planning which style you will choose for your new pair of black denim jeans from indi, we’re expecting this fabric to best suit our SoMa with a narrow or tapered leg opening.  For a fashion forward look, design your own black jeans to sit a little higher on your ankle by simply requesting a shorter than normal inseam. 

Pair this style with black peep-toe slingback pumps and a colorful trapeze top and stylewise you’ll be good to go any day or night of the week!

posted by: Amy D on May 22, 2009 at 2:50 pm
filed under:Happenings at INDi
TAGS: custom jeans, black jeans

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- Steer clear from flimsy or sheer shirts on top.  Let a breezy billowy blouse hang freely at your hips or pair it with a low slung belt for a super simple way to downplay a larger tummy or seat.
- Wear a wrap to accentuate your still-intact sexy little neckline and form fit your bust in a particularly feminine way.
- Another maternal figure-flatterer is the trendy wide belt.  Wrap it around almost any cutesy top to create the hour-glass effect (but remember to say no to muffin top by not tightening the belt too much).

Sporting great jeans as a mom is made easy with these go-to mom jean away ideas.  Start with finding a great jean for your mom body at indi.  Design your own custom denim starting from the pockets to the bottom hem and we know that the phrase “mom jeans” will be the last thing that comes to mind when you’re spotted in indi denim. 

Walk through our online ordering process to see what kinds of jeans you would design for yourself!  Once you order and are fit with your perfect jeans, come back here and share what works for you with all the other moms out here who may read this.

posted by: Amy D on May 7, 2009 at 6:17 pm
filed under:Fit Jeanious
TAGS: stylish mom jeans, muffin top

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Here are some quick tips to address the typical postpartum problem areas, like suddenly too much butt or a tummy that won’t tuck:

Fit

Slim fit is going to be tight, so go for this if you want a jean that beckons a confident, youthful look.  Go trouser if you want something that drapes through the hip and thigh and visually minimizes this area.

Fabric

Stretch is mainly for the comfort and wearability.  Your baby will thank you!

Wash

Everyone knows that darker colors are slimming, right?  Stick to the darker denims for a slimmer silhouette.

Rise

Say no to the muffin top, but keep your jeans’ waistline as physically far from your naval as is comfortably possible (at indi, our waist bands are custom-contoured to your body, so if you order low-rise you wouldn’t need to worry about plumber butt no matter what rise you choose).
-  Short-waisted ladies can go with the low rise with no problem. 
-  If you’re long-waisted, choose mid-rise for great coverage and the added visual effect that divides the torso and lower body. 

Pocket

To minimize the seat, avoid curved pockets.  The simple, basic pocket looks good on everybody. 
- If you want flaps?  Go with the asymmetrical flap pocket for a look that will get noticed.
- If you want embroidery?  Keep it simple or match the color of the thread to the jean if you can. 

Leg Opening

Consider this choice very carefully as you are actually being faced with a balancing act…
-  If you are feeling top heavy, draw attention away from your belly and bring a visual balance to your figure with a classic bootcut or flare.
-  If you are trying to camouflage a wider thigh, go wide leg with the trouser look and avoid the pork chop front pocket as it will draw attention to that area.

Fly, Embellishments and Add-Ons

Choose carefully - there is such a thing as too many details! 

Downplay those child-bearing hips by making your first jean purchase post-pregnancy a clean jean (ie avoid finishing touches around the thighs, hips, and waistline).

For more tips on how to rock jeans once you’ve safely arrive in mommydom, check out our next post in the series Deconstructing Mom Jeans - Part 3: Great Jeans For Moms From The Waist Up!

posted by: Amy D on
filed under:Fit Jeanious
TAGS: back pockets, stylish mom jeans

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First thing’s first.  As hard as it is to accept your pre-bump jeans may never look the same, we have to look to Nike for our catch phrase here… “just do it!”  You will be saner, believe me.  Consider fitting back into your old designer denim jeans a bonus to tackling your life-long goals for fitness, but don’t keep them hanging in your closet as a goal (or a dreaded reminder) of what used to be. The best way to get over your old pre-mom jeans will be getting excited about what new looks will flatter your post-baby body.

You birthed your child, you can live without jeans for a while, right?  Wrong.  The American uniform is a hard thing to live without for however many months it may take you to get back to your target weight.  We suggest investing in one pair of comfortable stretch jeans that fit your baby protecting body, but don’t spend an arm and a leg.  If all goes as planned, these jeans won’t fit for long.

Don’t stop reading here.  Check out our next post in the series Deconstructing Mom Jeans - Part 2: Finding the Right Fit for Moms!

posted by: Amy D on April 30, 2009 at 6:59 pm
filed under:Fit Jeanious
TAGS: stylish mom jeans

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Even if you like to buy jeans that are already torn to shreds, you never want to buy jeans with fraying in the wrong places.  So, if your next jean purchase is going to involve ripping, tacking, sanding and the like, be prepared to treat this pair with even more TLC.

Here at indi, our denim distressing techniques leave the jeans still looking pretty clean.  When you do choose to buy distressed jeans, keep in mind that there are ways of avoiding rips and tears in all the wrong places and salvaging your favorite pair when time has taken its toll.

Here are a few tips keep your favorite pair distressed denim jeans looking distressed, but not critical condition:

Tip #1:  Ever heard the old adage, a stitch in time saves nine?  Maybe Thomas Jefferson never had to buy jeans, but if he did, the same saying would’ve applied.  If your jeans are wearing down in the wrong places, take steps to repair them before it gets worse.

Tip #2:  If you literally need to patch things up, buy fabric fuse from your local craft or fabric supply store.  This product allows you to fuse the fabric without sewing a stitch!  To apply a patch as reinforcement on the underside of the fabric, make sure that it covers the entire area affected by the wear and tear. 

Tip #3:  Don’t know how to sew? Wouldn’t be caught dead in a craft store?  To avoid the patch process altogether, try www.denimtherapy.com.

When your jeans are literally unraveling around you and you feel like your denim is in serious distress, just remember that saving your jeans is simple!  If your favorite jeans, even if they’re tattered to all hell to begin with, need a little TLC, just follow our tips to keep your jeans looking tip top.

posted by: Amy D on April 21, 2009 at 3:51 pm
filed under:Misc Musings
TAGS: distressed denim, patched jeans

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posted by: Amy D on April 9, 2009 at 6:04 pm
filed under:Trend Alert
TAGS: stretch jeans, spandex jeans, denim care, stretch denim

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In 1997, Levi’s launched the Personal Pair program. It consisted of an in-store fit specialist, armed with tape measure and access to a few jean styles and expertise on how to make your denim work for you. Customers tried on jean after jean until they found a style they liked and a hip measurement that fit. The fit specialist would then determine what changes needed to be made to the jean waist and inseam length to maximize that custom fit. New jeans arrived in-store a few weeks later.

Drawbacks of the program included the fact that it was a mostly manual, time consuming process, and centered only on fit rather than complete customization of both fit and style. Customers could only choose from pre-created denim styles sold from Levi’s and had the option of fabric, washes, and leg styles.

Improvements to the custom denim program were made with the opening of the San Francisco Levi’s store in 1999. The entertainment-filled, mega-flagship store featured four variations of customization—-Original Spin total custom and “Modify an Authentic”, Embellishment additions, and shrink to fit. 

Original Spin was the new and improved Personal Pair custom program.  The customized program expanded the size offering and added more fabrics, finishes, and leg styles.  Customers could get that perfect custom fit by stepping into a body scanner.  The scanner used white light to take customer’s measurements in a fitting room. The downside? The person being scanned had to wear a skin tight leotard for their measurements to be accurate. Not exactly what I call fun.

Another added feature to Original Spin was “Modify an Authentic” which offered the consumer a wide range of waist sizes and inseam lengths that were not available off the shelf.  So if you could never wear 501’s because your 40” inseam was not available now you could.

Even though customer demand was high, Levi’s eventually discontinued its Original Spin program in 2004. Nevertheless, the program and its scanner pioneered a field that would give indi its future success.

There was also an Embellishment station where customers could take their newly purchased Levi’s and “funk them up” with a selection of embroideries, screen prints, hem treatments, and patches, holes, and tears. While this aspect of custom denim is a definite entertainment attraction, customers were stuck with their (sometimes amateur) designs for better or worse.

The next way customers could customize their jeans came in quite unconventional form; Customers bought a pair of “shrink to fit” jeans and sat in a giant copper tub filled with water and a special shrinking agent. They would then step into a waist high human blow dryer until their new jeans hugged every body curve. Unfortunately this was a 3-4 hour process and your skin and underwear would be tinted indigo blue from waist to ankles until you showered!  Not to mention, your once-white undies would be blue forever!

In the year 2000, the US National Size Survey launched as an anthropometric research project, gathering information that would eventually help the clothing industry find out just who they were selling to. The survey lasted three years and scanned over 10,000 subjects. The data gathered is still used for fit algorithms across the mass-customization industry today.  Since then, custom fit technology has been near-perfected by the Intellifit Corporation. Working with the same concept as the [TC]2 scanner, Intellifit’s Virtual Fitting Room (VFR) uses low-powered, safe radiowaves to detect a customer’s measurements accurately down to a centimeter without removing a single piece of clothing.

Other developments in the evolution of the custom jeans included the emergence of websites like zafu.com. These sites ask customers questions about their body. Using that information, a list of products that would complement their shape is generated. It’s not quite custom fit (more like a great personal shopper), but the concept is solid in its attempt to pair customers with jeans that fit their body.

Finally, 10 years after the first custom jean idea made it to the mainstream comes indiDenim. indiDenim is the first company to put all the elements together—a special fit algorithm based on statistical data that can accurately predict measurements such as waist, hip and inseam so customers don’t tie themselves silly with tape measurers, over 90 million style combinations (with more options added every day), a fit profile that lets customers describe their body in a simple, intuitive way, and even the utilization of Intellifit’s VFR (if you can make it to the office in Emeryville, CA).

With all of these features, indi has put itself at the forefront of custom jeans by giving customers the most accurate fit while providing infinite style options—giving people a look that is truly their own. Oh and don’t forget lovely blog writers!

posted by: maggie on March 13, 2009 at 1:57 pm
filed under:Denim 101
TAGS: custom jeans, history of jeans

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No matter how organic the cotton on your new jeans, no matter how environmentally friendly the denim company office practices, no matter the lengths a plant goes to in order to produce a green jean, the energy needed to create a new jean is still much more than the energy you’d be saving by finding a new, household use for an old pair that would otherwise be thrown in your wardrobe waste bin.

To us, being green when it comes to jeans doesn’t necessarily require purchasing anything at all.  You don’t even have to pay fifty cents for that pair of cutoffs at the Salvation Army reserved solely for your desperate housewives car wash drive or splurge on EBAY for those vintage jeans that just turn up on the side of a mountain in, oh, I don’t know, Reno somewhere.  No.  We’re talking about recycling your old jeans to help create a brighter future for denim!  Literally.

Ever wonder where we send returns?  Last year, indi diligently amassed a collection of denim scraps, returns, and sample swatches to donate to Cotton Inc’s COTTON. From Blue To Green.

The result was 150,000 of insulation helping Habitat for Humanity Volunteers build 12 new homes in

“the largest-scale, highest-profile, and biggest-budget rebuilding project to have gotten underway in New Orleans post-Katrina”.

Besides sending your old indi jeans back to us to recycle, there are tons of other ways to turn your old blue jeans green.  Here are just a few ideas we’ve come up with:
1.  Hand em’ down.  If you have a younger sister, or a boyfriend who wears tight jeans, you know what I’m talking about…
2.  Make a quilt
3.  Become this guy

We know that it’s not easy being green, but luckily for us, green is the new blue, baby, and we’re all for it!

posted by: Amy D on March 3, 2009 at 8:18 pm
filed under:Happenings at INDi
TAGS: recycled jeans

  comments (7)