May 14, 2012
On Friday, May 4th, we hosted our Clean Start Project reveal night for participants and anyone who has been following our project. Each pair of jeans were carefully displayed with a descriptive poster highlighting their individual characteristics. Meeting our Clean Start participants’ families and denim lovers from all over the OKC metro was a pleasure. It reminded us that denim (and projects like these) serve as a connector between us and the lives of our customers… quite a few customers wear our jeans every day and that’s a pretty cool thing for us to imagine.
Each pair of jeans was washed once to help highlight their wear and permanence. We’ve spotlighted quirks and distinguishing marks that each participant identified on their jeans when dropping them off.
And now, our final Clean Start 2011-2012 set of photos…
Thanks to everyone that’s followed our first Clean Start Project. Stay tuned for more information about next year’s Project!
May 2, 2012
We’re revealing the jeans from our 6 month long Clean Start Project!
Join us this Friday to appreciate the art of a perfect pair of jeans.
Location: Blue Seven, 7518 N. May, OKC
RSVP on Facebook.
It’s a family friendly event!
March 19, 2012
As our first Clean Start project is coming to a conclusion (only one month left!), we’ve been answering quite a few questions about the project in the store and around the community. So, we thought we’d refresh everyone a little.
What: The Clean Start project, sponsored by Blue Seven, visually documents the deconstruction of 19 pairs of raw denim. Each pair of jeans is worn every day without washing, allowing the personality of the participant to influence the wear on the denim.
Who: 19 individuals with different careers, passions and life experiences. Several of the individuals are Blue Seven employees too.
When: October 7th, 2011 through April 7, 2012. 6 months total.
Why: This is the most popular question that we’ve been hearing. Why are you doing this project? Well, we’re denim geeks and thought it would be fun. We also wanted it to be an educational opportunity for our customers and ourselves. We learn something new about the mechanics of denim every time we do a project like this. As our raw denim selection grows at Blue Seven, we want our customers to understand that anyone can enjoy raw denim and appreciate the beauty of a well-worn pair of jeans.
And now, after 5 months of wear, our Clean Start participants…
Charlie
Jerry
David
Amy
Eric
Jacob
Caleb
Ashley
Ben
Lindsay
Rusty
Dusty
Tyler
Tiffany
Heady
February 22, 2012
Our Clean Start Project participants have completed their fourth month of raw denim jean wearing. These next two months will continue to show significant changes in the denim, but some of the changes that we’re experiencing are well underway.
We never expected to develop such great friendships with our Clean Start participants. Five months ago, when we would see a Clean Starter at an event or in the store, the jeans were an easy conversation. But now, we know them. Our conversations are more likely to be about their life or family than their jeans. And, that makes us pretty happy.
Now, for the Month 4 update…
Charlie
Jerry
Amy
Eric *We think Eric’s students had a message they wanted to get out…
Jacob
Caleb
Lauren
Ashley
Ben
Lindsay
Jonn
Dusty
Tyler
Tiffany
Heady
Andrew
January 26, 2012
Raw denim can have a rough perception… Just the terms “deconstruction” and “broken in” and “selvedge” sound like the beginnings of a hard rock band name.
At Blue Seven, we believe raw denim appreciation is for everyone. We asked the sweetest girl that we knew to participate in our first Clean Start project to debunk this rough and tough theory. She’s worn Nudie Tight Long Johns for several months now with feminine scarves and cardigans and a variety of shoes and accessories, proving that a pair of great denim jeans is one of the most versatile pieces of clothing that you can own.
Meet Lindsay (and Sargent the shop dog).
She owns Collected Thread, a handmade shop in the Plaza District in Oklahoma City. Her business is located just down the block from another of our Clean Starters, Ashley.
If you’re familiar with OKC, you might recognize her signature Local is for Lovers tee. Lindsay also specializes in hand crafted baby items, fantastic knitwear, brightly screened prints and cards among many others items.
When she’s not running her business, she’s knitting scarves and sewing “Okie” baby onesies or any number of other products that she personally crafts for her shop. Since sewing is so integrated in her daily life, Lindsay put a wooden spool in her pocket at the beginning of the Clean Start Project.
We are just starting to see a little wear pattern on her right pocket from the spool. It moves vertical in her pocket throughout the day, so the wear may be very interesting. We’ll keep you posted.
Behind her knees, however, are some solidly creased honey combs.
 Lindsay knits a variety of products and holds knitting classes in her shop regularly; She loves books (her husband is a librarian, so she has an unlimited supply); Nudie Tight Long John's; After hours, she can occasionally be found working with her friends at Cuppies and Joe, a cupcake and coffee spot; the signature red bird for Collected Thread We recommend a visit to Lindsay’s shop:
Collected Thread
1705A NW 16th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73106
(405)557-1141
January 16, 2012
After a full three months, everyone — our customers, Twitter followers (shout out to @jonespauli in Sweden), our employees— are really getting into the Clean Start project. We grabbed a few closeups on the wear patterns developing on our owner, Caleb’s jeans. The image on the left shows wear from his phone and belt (along the waistline). The back shows wear from his wallet, which is pretty defined. It appears to be resting at the exact same angle every day, unlike his phone in the front pocket. Pretty amazing how daily habits can make an impact on denim.
Here’s a check in from the rest of our Clean Start crew:
Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about the denim progress. Do you post about your raw denim online? Send us a link!
January 5, 2012
Meet Ashley Smith, our local tattoo artist participating in the Clean Start project.
Ashley has been kicking around in a pair of Nudie Tight Long Johns for the past two months during our Clean Start project. They’ve already shown some serious wear, most notably from the pocket knife in her back pocket.
Chances are that pocket will not hold up much longer.
We’re really digging the splashes of Kilz primer on the side too.
It’s been interesting to see how interconnected all of our participants are in the Oklahoma City community. Recently, we visited No Regrets to see Ashley working on another one of our clean start participants, Jerry Willis.
This piece is actually an original by one of her favorite artists; Jerry spotted the piece in her booth when he was getting a previous tattoo. They joke that he will end up getting all the art on her wall tattooed on his body at some point. That might not be a bad idea!
 Ashley: Nudie Tight Long Johns; fishing lures inspire Ashley's jewelry line; St. Rita is always her pocket; Tattoo ink in Thunder blue; black Converse Take a peek at a few of Ashley’s recent projects. She posts photos of her work on her instagram account (username: inkordie) regularly.
December 14, 2011
We never get tired of seeing these monthly updates, hopefully you don’t either. After one third of the 6 month project, each pair of denim has started to develop character trends. We are seeing wear from phones, wallets, pocket knifes, and repetitive movements. We’ve even had to make a few repairs, which we’ve tried to catalog in our Clean Start Candids album on Facebook.
For those readers outside of Oklahoma City, we’ve been experiencing some pretty typical fall/winter weather with highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s and getting colder. Everyone is breaking out the flannel and boots and scarves and we don’t mind at all. The winterwear made for colorful photos this month.
Without further adieu, Clean Start Month 2…
Amy
Eric
Jacob
Caleb
Ashley
Dusty
Rusty
Tyler
Tiffany
Heady
Brett
Lauren
Ben
Jonn
Andrew
Charlie
December 6, 2011
We’re lucky to have so many talented people participating in our Clean Start project. As previously mentioned, we wanted to highlight some of our Clean Starters individually in feature posts or, in this case, a how-to post.
Jonn is a barista at the always enjoyable Elemental Coffee Roasters. Elemental isn’t exclusively a cafe, they also roast their own beans, which are distributed to a variety of businesses around Oklahoma City. Jonn gets to see a bean go from freshly roasted straight to a cup of goodness. That’s pretty neat.
During the Clean Start project, Jonn’s rockin a pair of Nudie Grim Tim’s with his Ray Ban Wayfarers and Bed Stu Rider boots. When he’s not brewing joe, he can be seen playing music under the name Teen Dream.
We asked Jonn to walk us through the perfect coffee brewing process.
Start with 210 degree water.
After placing a filter in its holder, rinse the filter with hot water to eliminate any taste residues from the paper filter. Dispose of any water used in the rinsing process and places the filter in holder on top of a carafe.
Grind 28 grams of Elemental Coffee beans.
Pour the grounds into the dampened filter/holder.
Elemental uses weight measurement as a way to ensure consistency and the best brew. After placing the grounds/filter/carafe on a digital scale, zero out the scale to measure only the weight of the water that will be poured in this next step.
Pour 60 grams of water evenly over the grounds. This should saturate the grounds and bloom.
Let the coffee bloom for one minute (a little less if it was roasted more than a week ago).
Then, pour more water in small circles until the scale reads 415 grams.
Sit back and watch the coffee brew and drip into the carafe.
After a few minutes, the dripping will cease… leaving perfectly brewed coffee.
Now, enjoy.
This is Jonn. He’s a Clean Start participant and he’s serious about his coffee.
November 21, 2011
After one month of wear, our Clean Starters are still loving their denim. Yay! We’re also starting to see some great wear patterns on a few of the pairs (especially on knees and back pockets).
Since we have a large number of participants, we’ll be selecting a handful of people to feature each month. With each post, we’ll include the previous month’s photos for comparison. Don’t worry, we’ll recap all of our participants & their denim at the end of the 6 months.
And, here it is… Month 1!
Tiffany
Lindsay
Johnn
Jacob
Heady
Eric
Jerry
Caleb
Ben
Ashley
Amy
For more frequent updates from our Clean Starters, Blue Seven & denim lovers, follow tag #B7CleanStart on Twitter.
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