Selvedge

What it is

Every woven cloth has two long edges. On a wide modern loom those edges are cut and finished after weaving. On a narrow shuttle loom the weft yarn turns around at each edge and goes back, so the edge finishes itself as it is woven. That self-finished edge is the selvedge ("self-edge"), often carrying a coloured yarn — a red line, a white line — so the mill could tell its cloth apart.

Selvedge denim is denim woven that way. It is narrower than modern denim, usually a little under a metre, and slower to make.

Why use it

Two honest reasons, and one that gets overstated.

• The edge can be used. On a jean the outseam can be sewn with the selvedge as the seam allowance and pressed open, with no need to finish a raw edge. That is why you see the coloured line when a cuff is turned. See The selvedge outseam.
• The looms. Cloth from older shuttle looms tends to be woven with a bit more character and less tension than high-speed cloth — a slightly uneven surface that ages well. The Bench Note Notes on selvedge is the longer version of that opinion.
• What it does not mean. A selvedge is an edge, not a grade. It says how the cloth was woven, not how heavy, how tightly, or how well it is dyed. Those are separate questions — Fabric weight is one of them.

Where it is used here

The Standard Issue Jean is cut so the selvedge runs down the outseam. The Foundry Jacket is built from a Japanese selvedge denim, where the edge is used for economy of cutting rather than shown. The specific cloths are on their material pages.

How it wears

The selvedge itself barely changes: it stays a crisp line long after the surrounding cloth has faded, which is exactly why a turned cuff still reads years in. The narrow width shapes the cutting more than the wearing — a pattern has to be laid out to make the most of a metre-wide cloth, and that decides where seams fall.