What's the difference between denim and chino fabric anyway?
This is definitely a stupid question, but it's pretty hard to find a satisfying answer online. They're both twill cotton fabric. There's all this "lore" (for lack of better term) around denim, like "Japanese raw selvedge denim", that you don't really see with chino fabric. Could people theoretically do the same with chinos? The only difference I see is that chino fabric is somehow more lightweight, but I don't understand why.
4 Replies
This thread has a cool discourse + argument thrown in on the topic:
https://www.styleforum.net/threads/what-is-the-difference-between-denim-and-chino.707213/
Styleforum
What is the difference between Denim and Chino?
They're both cotton twills, but they definitely tend to feel different. I know that Denim is, formally, a warp faced 2:1 or 3:1 cotton twill with an indigo warp and white weft, but that doesn't explain the way in which Chino is airy, and sometimes sort of waxy-ish... Is chino cotton treated in...
As for why denim has more gravitas than chino - I would guess the answer is mostly cultural. Denim has so much coolness associated with it
A little hard to quantity coolness but the cultural impact of denim is massive. Definitely a factor in elevating denim kinda into its own space of recognizable
Thanks! I'll give it a read. Yeah we can easily tell the difference between them, but it's strange how there's a difference but it's hard to explain. I guess chinos feel smoother. Denim definitely has that rugged, workwear feeling to it, I agree.
I am wondering when we are going to start bathing in our chinos and going months without washing them. Starting a raw chino community.
I remember Todd Snyder selling some Japanese Selvedge Chinos last time I looked at the brand. I think most Chino wearers don't care about fades in the same way that raw denimheads do. But everytime Heddels does a piece on non-denim (chinos, fatigues, corduroy, etc), they have to tell their readers that they also patina/fade.