Welcome to
Denim University
Written by
Eric Steffen
Founder / Maker
FITTED Underground
Introduction
In 2014, I quit my job and started sewing jeans. I never looked back.
I had no formal training. No apprenticeship, no factory floor experience. I bought a sewing machine and I held to a conviction that making a great pair of jeans by hand was worth learning.
For a decade, I worked alone in a basement workshop learning the art of jeansmaking one pair at a time. I hired my first employee in 2024, but everything that I figured out before that, and that we've figured out since, has been stitch by stitch, fitting by fitting — mistake by mistake.
This intentional process of learning produced an unintentional result: a map of the raw denim universe, built from the ground up. Not from a textbook, but from a decade of making.
Denim University is my attempt to hand that map to you.
Let's get to class.
-Eric Steffen
Brooklyn NY
.
The Curriculum
What It Is
Denim University is a free, open curriculum about raw denim and the world around it. No sign-up required. No paywall. No certification at the end — though if you read the whole thing, you'll know more about denim than almost anyone you'll meet.
The curriculum is organized into levels, each building on the one before it:
- The 000 level covers history — how indigo traveled the world, how blue jeans were born in America, how Japan became the unlikely custodian of the craft when the rest of the world moved on — and how we're a part of a maker's movement elevating craft back to their rightful place in American life. It's a prologue before diving into the modern world of raw denim
- The 100 level covers foundations — what raw denim actually is, what selvedge means, how fabric weight works, and every part of a jean explained from waistband to hem.
- The 200 level covers buying — how to find your fit, how much to spend, the economics behind the price tag, and where to shop in New York City.
- The 300 level covers care and wear — how to wash raw denim, how fading works at the molecular level, how to get great fades, and how to repair jeans when they eventually need it.
- The 400 level goes deep into the craft — how denim is made, how a pattern is drafted, what happens in a workshop like ours.
- The 500 level covers culture — the denim community, slow fashion, the philosophy behind what we do.
- The 600 level completes the "undergraduate" course that is explicitely focused on raw denim.
- The 700 level takes our understanding and expands it to the broader American heritage space and denim adjacent topics like high quality tees, fatigue pants and sashiko fabrics.
You can start at the beginning and work through it in order, or you can jump directly to whatever you came here to understand. Every article is written to stand on its own.
Why a Maker Wrote This
Before I started making jeans, I was a teacher. That background shapes how I've structured this course and motivated me to communicate what I've learned to others. The role of a good teacher, after all, is to make themselves redundant. But it's my experiential knowledge that the course itself is built upon.
What makes Denim University different from almost everything else written about raw denim is that it comes from a maker. Not just someone covering the space, not just a retailer selling the product, not just an enthusiast wearing it — but a maker first and foremost. Someone who has drafted the patterns, sourced the fabric, sewn the jeans, and spent years making mistakes, correcting those mistakes and improving our products and knowledge based on what clients actually need. I hope that perspective shows up in every article.
I don't know everything, and where I'm uncertain, I do my best to say so. And I have done a lot of research to help expand my understanding, especially of the 000 level that focuses on the history of raw denim. Where I've brought in research to supplement my own experience, I cite it. I've tried to make this an honest course, written by someone who learned a lot of this the hard way.
What We Hope You Take Away
The goal of Denim University is not to turn you into a denim obsessive — though that may happen, and we apologize in advance if it does. The goal is to make you a more informed consumer of something that is worth caring about.
Let me give away the ending — the upshot of this course is an unapologetic argument that slow fashion is the solutions to the problems in the fashion industry. Ultimately, that means the values of slow fashion rather than any one particular practice. We're not calling for everything to be made in America or for everyone to buy raw denim.
But we do celebrate craft, and the principals of people over profits, time over money, and quality over consumption. And those values can and should be embraced throughout our society — and embedded in our economic systems.
Denim is the perfect place to start.
Why Denim
Jeans are the most democratic garment ever made. They were designed for hard work and became the uniform of every subculture, every generation, every kind of person. An emblem of Americana adopted by the world.
They are also one of the most environmentally significant garments in the world — cotton farming, chemical finishing, fast fashion's churn — and understanding that significance is part of being a responsible buyer. The more you know about what goes into a pair of jeans, the better the choices you'll make: what to buy, how much to spend, how to care for what you have, how long to keep it.
We also, simply, want you to end up in a pair of jeans you love. Not just like. Love. Jeans that fit so well you don't think about them. Jeans that get more beautiful as they get older. Jeans that record the specific texture of your life in indigo and friction and wear. We believe that pair exists — for anyone who wants to find it — and we believe that understanding the material is the fastest path to getting there.
DU 402: The Art and Science of Pattern Making
DU 403: How a Pair of Jeans Are Made
DU 404: The Evolution of the Craft
DU 405: The Machines Needed to Make a Pair of Jeans (coming soon)
DU 601: Test Your Knowledge — The Denim University Quiz
DU 602: FITTED Underground FAQ
DU 603: The Fade Library (coming soon)
DU 604: Meet Us in Person — Book a Fitting (coming soon)
DU 701: T-Shirts Explained — From Underwear to Icon
DU 702: Fatigue Pants Explained (coming soon)
DU 703: Chinos Explained (coming soon)
DU 704: Chore Coat Explained (coming soon)
DU 705: Sashiko Fabric Explained — The Stitch that Became a Fabric
About Us
FITTED Underground is a custom jeans and raw denim workshop at 108 Bayard Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We offer ready-to-wear garments, custom size jeans (cut to your measurements), and fully bespoke jeans designed by you and made by us from scratch. All our jeans, shirts and jackets are made in-house.
We've also started an internship and apprenticeship program for aspiring designers and tailors who want to learn the art of jeans-making in our Brooklyn workshop. If you're interested in learning the craft — not just reading about it — reach out. We'd love to hear from you.
Find us
108 Bayard St., Williamsburg
Brooklyn NY
646.771.4622
Free online hems
Free in store alterations.
Free global shipping on order over $200