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Statement in blue
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Jeans may look casual and unruly, yet they have a place in the wardrobe of the young and the old. Having undergone change in the last century and a half, in terms of style, cut and embellishment, it remains the most favoured garment.
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A YOUNGSTER'S wardrobe is unthinkable without jeans. It's not just cool to sport jeans for the Gen-X but practical too. This rough-and-tough garment is ideal for all occasions. Sport it with a casual T-shirt for an informal do or a formal or jazzy shirt or a short kurta (the latest craze) and it turns haute. The older generation too has taken to it in a fairly large way. This `cult' garment has stood the test of time and even adapted to changing times.
Jeans are a subculture on their own. A symbol of ruggedness and the all-male sentiment, jeans are the most worn garments in the world, first made by a man called Loeb (later Levi) Strauss who arrived in San Francisco in the 1850s during the time of the California Gold Rush with a load of calico that he intended to use to produce tents for the miners. What he found was a surplus of tents but a shortage of quality material for the production of durable trousers. Teaming up with Jacob Davis in 1873, he managed to acquire a quantity of serge de Nimes, a material whose name was quickly abbreviated to denim. The Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s saw many a farmer hard pressed to earn a living. As a means of raising money `Dude Ranches' were set up in the Western farming areas for tourists. Following this, the production of Westerns saw the cowboy look establish itself as a fashion item throughout the United States and later on to a more global market. The five-pocket look, together with sturdy copper rivets, quickly became the working clothes of miners and farmers and persisted until the late 1930s after which they made an entry into films. Throughout its history, jeans have symbolised the bad boy image. On a social level this caused rifts among parents and their jeans-clad children since they were of the view that jeans embodied rebelliousness and a general disrespect for discipline and order. In the 1950s, jeans re-emerged as a symbol of rebelliousness and the conflict of youth in films like "The Wild One" and "Giant". Jeans are now a way of life for people of all ages from all walks of life. Seventy years later, jeans are still going strong even though denim has been through considerable mutations in the form of pencil cases, lunch boxes, skirts, shirts, vests, ties, bandanas, cummerbunds, shoes, belts, caps and so on. Denim jeans featured embroidery, flower power images, rips, stone wash and dirty effects. They were personalised, buckled, bib-and-braced, painted, shrunk and stretched. To cut a long description short, customised jeans are the order of the day.
Since the influx of bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, grunge came to be the style that was associated with jeans. Torn, faded jeans and the general don't-give-a-damn attitude became the trademark of people who saw grunge as a new life style. Major market labels like Lee, Levis, Calvin Klein were spending huge sums of money to create pre-faded and torn jeans.
Consequently, people are now spending more and more money to look poor. Gone are the days when jeans were available in only one colour and style, blue and straight.
Since the preferred colour of jeans is blue, it is probably worth knowing that the blue dye used in the production of jeans is a synthetically produced indigo. The darker the dye, the more toxic it is. Over time we have seen that jeans have become skin-tight and anti-fits, there are boot cut jeans and stretch jeans. Jeans come in colours ranging from black to purple (courtesy Salman Khan).
Plain jeans are definitely boring and the `in' thing is to wear jeans with embroidery on them. Jeans with dyed patterns on them are nothing new either. The music industry and the fashion industry are inexplicably linked to each other. Whereas in the early 1980s we had rock stars advertising jeans, we now have supermodels replacing them. The year 1998 saw a fall in the sale of jeans due to the introduction of cargo pants. Ever since hip-hop shot into the limelight in a big way, there has been a sharp decline in the number of jeans buyers. Jeans are now being threatened by the-below-the-belt, literally, clothing styles of the hip-hop artistes.
Instead of jeans we have people opting for anti-fit pants, cargo pants, and dungarees. So once again we have the proponents of the music industry dictating the moods of the fashion industry.
Where then does the future for denim jeans lie? Is it because of the approach that is at present being adopted by the major fashion houses of Armani, Calvin Klein, and Guess, who target the 15-24 age group? Is it in the strategies of long-term suppliers such as Levis, who still hang desperately to their time worn image of reliability, durability and tradition? Perhaps the future of the jeans is really in the hands of the customer who dictates what style he wants. In other words, jeans are here to stay as long as there is room for creative customisation.
KASHIF ALI
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