Why Are Blue Jeans Universally Loved?

In My Humble Opinion
21

They don’t need ironing.

If I wear a pair long enough to get baggy knees, they go away when washed.

Being usually dark blue or black, you can wear them with any other color. Actually, so long as you’re not mixing, say, orange jeans with a green and yellow top, you’re fine… oh, wait: Indian multicolored blouses mixing exactly those colors are very much in, so you can wear orange jeans with a green and yellow top so long as the irritating nylon-stitched label you had to cut off said it was made in the Indian subcontinent.

They come in all kinds of cuts. Even if the cut doesn’t fit just-so, it’s easy to get that extra inch at the waist fixed. Most stores in Spain don’t even charge for cutting off the extra length at the leg (except during sales).

They can be a party item (one of the girls at work has this pair with feathers…) or a work item. Men have been combining them with a jacket long enough for women to be seen as professional when we do the same (except for the poor folks in the banking business and those strange salesguys with the horrid ties and who-did-that haircuts).

22

Another dissenting opinion - I don’t like jeans at all. They’re thick, coarse, and uncomfortable.

23

I agree with Athena and Earthworm Jim. I’ve never been able to understand why people find jeans comfortable. They’re stiff, dense, and rough-textured. After a day of wearing jeans, it’s almost as though my legs ache a little bit. Khakis are much more comfortable.

24

I don’t love them.

They take too long to soften up, unless you pay extra for the pre-softened ones, and they never end up feeling right.

They aren’t warm enough when it’s cold, especially if they’re a little (or a lot) dirty.

When it’s hot, and your legs sweat, they end up weighing about 20 tons.

They don’t last as long as they should, and there’s little in life more annoying than a huge hole in the knee, catching on the knee every time you sit down with those frickin white threads cutting into you.

I wore them for years, but never again.

25

I don’t care for them; never have. I’ve only owned one pair in my life, and that was because I needed it as a costume for a play. They’re stiff; I don’t care much for the color, and the fact that everyone else in the world wears them makes them even less appealing.

26

I don’t mind them as an alterative to the khakis I wear all week, but I don’t find them comfortable. They are stiff and even at the right size cutting into my flesh when I bend. Sweatpant material is the creation I am most thankful for, and if they could make fleece in a breathable fabric I would love that too.

27

Fleece is probably the most breathable fabric made, which is why it is worthless in the wind (unless you’re wearing one of the windstopper varieties).

28

As someone who’s fashion-impaired, it’s hard to go wrong with jeans. As long as you don’t have the ones from the early 90s (?) that were pleated or the ones with zippers and bows at the ankle, pretty much any ordinary, plain pair of jeans is going to look ok and not go out of style.

For anyone who thinks they’re uncomfortable, try the stretch kind. I loooooove them! Regular jeans can be extremely uncomfortable, but the stretch ones are heavenly.

29

Only if you’re outdoors. Inside, it’s stifling. We keep our heat down at 64F, and I often wear sweaters, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in fleece.

It’s not bad a jacket lining, but wearing fleece indoors is like sitting in a steambath.

30

That is due to the fact that it is extremely warm. There is no such thing as a fabric that is 100% breathable, so if you have on too much clothing then you are going to sweat.

Indoors or out, fleece is extremely breathable.

31

Just to show “there’s always someone”; I don’t like jeans, and don’t own a pair. :stuck_out_tongue:

32

I agree with everything that Athena, Earthworm Jim, Ultros, and kelly5078 said about why jeans are uncomfortable. I’ve thought about how anyone could say they prefer jeans as more comfortable. More comfortable than what? Girdles? Burlap? Armor?

Maybe “comfort” means different things to different people. To me, the discomfort of pants in general, jeans not least, is how they bind up around my thighs, hips, crotch, and butt, and worse, in hot weather they get sweaty, sticky, and above all stifling. Comfort means a flowing skirt that liberates me from all that.

I’m guessing maybe jeans are comfortable in the sense of “If I felt like it I could run outside and climb a tree, ride a dirt bike, wrestle alligators this very moment without needing to change into something less fussy! I can go anywhere, do anything, without needing to change, and never need to think about taking care of my clothes! What a relief!”

But that isn’t the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of comfort. Rather than outdoors rough stuff, my favorite activities are things like playing the piano and reading books, where skirts and dresses are no disadvantage.

That said, girl-jeans are slightly more comfortable than guy-jeans (for one thing, they have Lycra :slight_smile: ) and as a matter of fact I wore Levis to work today, wearing them as I type this–probably no coincidence this thread happened on Casual Friday.

I have no objection to the look of jeans. The blue color is fine with me. As an Italian-American I can take a certain ethnic pride since jeans are named after the Italian city of Genoa. I agree with everyone who said that they go with everything–yes, even heels, Logan 5, even heels. (If they’re the right look in heels, that is, e.g. high-heeled suede boots with jeans are a winner.)

From a fashion point of view, I think it’s an utterly brilliant concept to have one item that is a universal combiner, you practically can’t get it wrong no matter what you pair jeans with. This was the concept they were aiming for with the “little black dress,” but of course jeans are infinitely more versatile than even the LBD. Even better that this idea didn’t come from couture houses, but from vox populi.

The most breathable, most comfortable fabric in existence is Supplex. It dries faster than any other fabric, it’s extremely soft and flexible, it breathes as well as your skin itself, and never feels too hot. I wore a black Supplex leotard today, the comfort of which offset the discomfort of my Levis, so on average I feel OK.

The thing I hate the most about jeans is the little hard spots where one seam overlays another. Lying on the floor, rolling over onto one of those digging into my hip like a pebble in my shoe, I think damn I never want to wear jeans again.

33

For me it’s the opposite, I find khakis less comfortable. Because they are slacks, they’re supposed to have that neat sharply creased appearance. So find myself worring about not messing up the crease.

34

Average height where? Average male American height is 5’9"-5’10".

35

So sometimes comfort means “non-fussy clothes I don’t need to think about”? I think I get the concept on an intellectual level, but I don’t feel it.

I want clothes that 1) fit me exactly right, 2) look good, 3) feel good too. If it takes a little extra effort to have all 3 at once, that’s not a problem.

36

A friend of mine once said “A good pair of jeans is the push-up bra for the ass.” And she was right. It’s hard to find a pair of slacks that don’t make my butt disappear into nothingness. In the right pair of jeans, my ass is amazing.

Tip for those who dislike stiff jeans: Resale/Thrift stores. It’s a bit of a pain, but you can score some seriously good denim for a very cheap price, and the right pair will have a glovelike fit that is truly astonishing.

37

Seems to me like almost every male is six feet these days. It seems like I’m looking into everybody’s necks.

38

In looking up average height statistics, I discovered that the average height in Montenegro is 6’2". Geez!

39

I can be wearing them at the office and feel professional, and yet not worry about them if I need to schlep a crate or box or dusty PC or whatever across the parking lot.

If you don’t spill anything on them or kneel in the grass, you can wear them for a week. Cleaning consists of throwing them in the washing machine with anything at all 'cause nothing bad can happen to them, followed by not ironing them.

Most importantly for me, people actually make size 36 jeans, whereas slacks I have to really hunt for, and other things like cargo pants (which when I had a pair I really loved) I can just forget about.

40

They’re comfy. They’re hard to stain. They reassure the normals that I’m human. What could be bad?