I started thinking about this when the Wall Street Journal ran an ad where country clubs are relaxing their no-jeans/denim policy in order to get in the younger baby boomers (45-55?) or some such thing, since they have to wear their ‘denim’ all the time.
It had quotes from members (who had money to join) who said either the ban would be lifted, or they and their jeans would go elsewhere.
I thought, hmmm, weird
The internet is filled with non stop discussions of ‘raw denim’ and this and that, and descriptions on how to treat them, and how to wash and age them.
Ok I don’t get it: What is so good about denim? People seem to wear it in the United States a lot, and it is treated like the fundamental fabric.
I view it as good for motorcycling, horseback riding, farming, working, but mostly I see people who wear it for show.
Why is it so widely worn? Do other countries wear it as much? All the jeans look to same to me, why are there ‘designer’ jeans like something called ‘sugarloaf’ that cost a lot more $$? Is the denim made up of fairie dust?
And what is with the obsession with how to wash it? Just wash it. it’s not cashmere.
I"m sounding too negative about this, more than I am, I mean to only ask about this to learn more. I dont quite get it.
Raw denim bleeds ink everywhere for the first couple of washes, and can easily stain your furniture and other clothes. That sucks dick. Why the hell would anyone put up with that? Oh, and the “big thing” to do is wear your pants for months without washing them, to develop the “sickest faces.” :rolleyes:
Buncha couch-staining stanky pantsed assholes think they look soooo good.
Not too much to add, except that it seems like many trends to experience revivals If there’s a revival, the trend becomes a bit more rarefied than it was the first time around, but also lasts longer, becoming a more permanent part of the larger culture. A few trends with second comings include:
Cigars: boomed in the early 1990s, fizzled out by the end of the decade, revived in the mid-2000s.
Craft brewing: boomed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many microbreweries closed in the mid-1990s, revival in the early 2000s.
Video games: boomed in the 1970s, crashed in 1983, slow revival gaining steam in the late 1990s.
I’ve noticed the same thing with jeans. Designer jeans were big in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, everybody pretty much just wore Levis, Lee and Wrangler, with Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt, Sassoon, Sergio Valente and the rest out of the picture. The jean revival seemed to hit the radar screen in the early 2000s.
Maybe the whoel indie movement has something to do with the revival of denim? In the past, everybody wanted to wear the post popular brands. Today, obscurity is in.
Why anything? Why do so many people wear business suits? Why are shirts with collars considered more formal than those without? Why did men’s hats fall out of fashion?
Jeans are just a part of our culture. I think America values the idea of “cool,” which includes the idea that you are too cool to dress up for anyone. Jean bring to mind images of cowboys and James Dean- both really cool. Over time, enough people started wearing jeans and finding them practical that it just became a default piece of clothing. I mean, they are easy to care for, can look really good, are generally comfortable and have well-placed pockets. Why not wear them?
As for designer jeans- some of them do look good, especially around the butt area. Others are just in it for conspicuous consumption.
Jeans combine comfort with style and durability. You can go for a hike or go to work in jeans. They don’t stain easily and they don’t wear out. What’s not to like?
Though we call them “blue” jeans it’s actually indigo, a thin color strip of its own between blue and purple in the spectrum. I can’t think of any thing else we can wear that’s quite like it, color-wise.
They look good without being ironed and hold up well, and if you’re a short statured or underweight male, it’s much easier to find jeans that fit well, than slacks. At least that’s always been my experience.
Where on the internet are you finding these discussions? I thought it was still (almost) exclusively the purview of sites like Superfuture, which is really a hobbyist site for denim fanatics and not unlike the million of other hobbyist sites on the internet. I’ll grant that there’s been an increased interest in raw denim the past couple years, but nothing on the scale your comment seems to suggest.
I’m currently wearing two pairs of raw denim: the Eternal 811BG and the new Mister Freedom Californian. There’s really no comparison to be made between either of these two jeans and the jeans you’d find stocked in the average department store.
For example, the MF Californian is made with fifty-year-old deadstock. It is woven one at a time on a vintage shuttle loom, which preserves the selvage and generally ensures a stronger, longer-lasting jean. The cut-pattern is supposedly based on the jeans worn by the members of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in the film “The Wild One,” which is incredibly appealing to a denim nerd like myself, who sort of covets the fit and silhouette of jeans made during the 40s and 50s.
This comes from the desire to achieve high-contrast fades.
In a pair of jeans like this, the denim has undergone a process called pre-distressing, which is designed to give the jeans an old, worn-in look. That doesn’t happen with raw denim. The fades in raw denim come about through natural wear. Raw denim loses dye when the denim is abraded at high-stress areas, like the seat or the lap or the knees. Of course, they also lose dye when they’re washed, because of the agitation of the washing machine and the corrosive quality of the cleaning agents in the laundry detergent. Except when they’re washed, the dye is lost from everywhere on the jeans, not just at high-stress points, and so the contrast between the two types of denim loss is less obvious.
It’s generally understood that you should wash your jeans whenever they’re stained or starting to smell. Washing them every couple of months is only appropriate if you’re into high-contrast fades; if you’re not, you can wash them whenever you feel like it. It all depends on how you want them to look.
Define “slow,” as the NES which was released state-side in 1985, quickly because the best selling console ever until the PlayStation’s release in 1995.
Red Barchetta beat me to it, but the NES brought video gaming all the way back by 1986. By the late 90s it was a multi-billion dollar industry and today it makes more money than the theatrical runs of every movie combined.
Also, the idea of “video games” as a trend isn’t something I can’t wrap my head around. They were always popular, even during the crash years (gaming shifted to arcades and PCs instead).
I wasn’t aware there was a denim obsession. But I like to wear jeans because they’re comfy, they come out of the washer looking about as good as they did going in, they don’t have to be ironed, and (since I don’t go for designer brands) they’re cheap.
Sadly, some moron mucky-muck at work determined that they were unprofessional (at least the blue ones) so I’ve had to buy some twill slacks to get thru the week. Because, you know, I can’t possibly attain the same level of productivity sitting in my cubicle in my dark corner of the office if I’m wearing denim. :rolleyes:
Anyway, I’m not obsessed - I just like that when jeans were a regular part of my wardrobe, at least one part of my life was simple.
Exactly. And those of us who wear jeans for these reasons are completely absent from those highfalutin discussions about proper treatment of denim. I think the extent of my treatment of jeans is, first few times through the wash, they get washed with other pairs of jeans, or maybe with dark towels. No online discussion needed.
Sorry to hear that. Fortunately, I can wear jeans to work every day, and with rare exceptions, that’s what I do. I wear my newer jeans to work, and wear the more worn-out ones on weekends, or turn them into cutoffs.
And that brings me back to the OP:
Part of the deal is that, even for most of us who are among the more well-off boomers, country clubs are barely on the edge of our radar to begin with. So if there are other impediments to joining, such as having to wear clothes we don’t normally wear, that’s pretty much the clincher on the deal.
[HIJACK] In any case, the whole silly business of indigo as spectral color only came about because it was shoehorned in there by Sir Isaac Newton, who had a hard-on for the number seven, and so just had to have seven colors in his spectrum to have it match other lists with seven items on it. The real spectrum is of course continuous, but if you have to chop it up, six colors clearly makes more sense if you look at a color circle. [/HIJACK]
Like others have said, they are comfortable, and durable. I can ware them just about anywhere and do. For myself, they slowly transform for cloths I ware to work to clothes that I just ware when I’m working on stuff around the house. Changing the oil in the truck and stuff.
Colorado is a very laid back state. There are few places where jeans aren’t accepted.
I admit though, yesterday, I bought my first pair of Carhart pants. I think I’m going to really like them. Should be nice and warm in winter too.
I went out to a club last night to see a band. This was a nice club but the locals in their blue jeans cheapened the place. I understand the blue jean era but I never got stuck in it. Only a few of us were not in old jeans. Some of the ladies and men looked great and were dressed well. Others looked like they just got off the couch and showed up. Even when I drank I got dressed up to get messed up?
The town I live in is very laid back and anything goes. So you see many different types of pants on a given day. Jeans are by far the popular with young people and some of us older folks.
Jeans are very laid back but still I don’t like to see them in the upscale clubs and church. If I see a guy in a tee shirt and jeans I think, grow up. Now a man in nice slacks and a button down and I immediately think he took the time to dress. Judging by the nice vehicles and bikes out front some of these people were dressing down on purpose. They may have been letting their hair down.
It’s kind of fun to just go people watch. The band was great and the people on the most part had a great time dancing. It was a 40-60 year old crowd and they play mostly 80’s rock and roll. Now the band looked fine in jeans and t-shirts but Hey, They are the band! I exchanged smiles with the lead singer a few times and he knew I came to hear the band… Or perhaps he thought I was from Rolling Stone? Who knows but it was great.
I think this says it all - country clubs are becoming less and less popular. After all, dues are expensive and, even if you have unlimited access to the club and its amenities, lots of people prefer more variety. Many clubs are also fairly stodgy, and the no-jeans rule contributes to that perception. Plus, consider that many 45-55 year olds also have tween and teen-aged kids. I remember going to my mom’s country club and hating the fact that I couldn’t wear jeans. I was probably a real pain in the ass about it, but she’d actually get a note from management if I wore them, even to the pool as a coverup. I’m sure that idea strikes many people as downright obnoxious. I know it strikes me that way.
Anyway, I personally wish that people would dress up a little more - jeans often strike me as a little too casual for some places, and insisting on wearing them to nice places at age 45 seems a little…odd and almost kid-like, though that’s mostly based on the adults I was raised by. Still, you can dress them up to a certain extent. As long as people don’t look sloppy, it shouldn’t matter.
In addition to being comfortable, durable & cheap - there’s a general sense that jeans are something young people wear. Suits or khakis are grown up clothes. Our teens almost never wear anything but jeans except maybe school uniforms. Fashion in the US is set by the teens, not the adults. No one would ever admit that they’re too old for jeans.
I don’t much care for jeans, personally, for everyday wear. They’re too hot in summer and too cold in winter. But they have their place in any American wardrobe.
You saw that I’m talking about raw denim, right? Regular denim doesn’t stain, because it’s been pre-washed at the factory to minimize indigo bleeding, but raw denim almost always comes with a warning label about its potential to rub ink onto anything it touches.
Stain your furniture? That’s a new one.