A rags to riches to rags story

They’re an American invention and icon. Or should be. Originally, they were developed as a workhorse of the American West, a much needed item for the frontier. Now, they’re a fashion statement -- sometimes despised, sometimes loved for how they define a person. They’re available to every income level, every age group and can range the international fashion scene from every day to haute couture.

Figure it out yet? Jeans. Blue jeans, dungerees, denim pants, whatever you want to call them, there’s a pair made for every butt. It all started with a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss. A funny thing happened on his way to the California gold rush. When Strauss couldn’t sell his canvas for wagon covers and tents, he followed a suggestion to make pants out of the tough fabric. He called them overalls, customers called them Levis and the world famous cowboy couture company was born. Soon, he switched to a tough cotton fabric out of France called serge de Nimes, which is where the name denim comes from. Strauss dyed his fabric with indigo and called them jeans after the heavy denim pants known as Genes, worn by Italian sailors from Genoa. Similar pants were worn by sailors from Dhunga, India. These were called dhungarees.

After the Civil War, Levis were snapped up by cowboys from Texas to California, along with the matching jackets, becoming the American cowboy’s mode of dress. The Levis jeans “suit” is on display in the Smithsonian’s Americana collection. The original model, much like today’s, had tapered legs, orange stitching and copper rivets at all the stress points. Eventually the rivets on the back pockets were removed, because they were scratching up saddles and furniture. After a Levis exec crouched too long in front of  a blazing campfire, the crotch rivet was eliminated, as well. Ouch.

In my opinion, the 1960s Peace-Not-War Hippy movement likely advanced the popularity of this clothing item. Jeans were cheap, accessible and road worthy. The bell bottom thing was a U.S. Navy design (Yes, the U.S. Navy’s sailors wore denim pants, too.). So, I’m guessing due to a lack of funds, these groovy, free-wheeling kids raided their dads’ discarded USN duffle bags for clothing items and snagged the old man’s denim bell bottoms. Born out of necessity, the look caught on and became a fashion craze in the 70s. The entire teen/young adult population wanted blue jeans. Manufacturers ramped up production to meet the demands of this major consumer group. Jeans weren’t just for laborers anymore.

Jeans went high fashion in 1980 when designer Calvin Klein hired superstar actress Brooke Shields to sport his jeans in the famous commercial where she told viewers: “Nothing comes between me and my jeans.” And boom! The fashion industry went nuts. Buying into the sultry supermodel billboards and slick magazine ads, high schoolers, college students and baby boomers all gobbled up their share of indigo cotton trousers, despite the price hike for a designer label. From motorcycle gang members to highfalutin fashionistas, blue jeans were a standard in everyday and eveningwear ensembles.

Jeans made a statement. They were cool. Sexy even. Designers tried all kinds of things to make their brand stand out. Remember the jeans that were stitched to look like they were made of three-inch squares of denim? I had a pair; they left weird lines on your legs. I had a pair of white jeans with zippers that went from the waistband all the way down the outside of the leg. They got a lot of looks. Then stone-washed and frayed jeans came out. Some had purposely frayed blocks of fabric cut out of them -- like a pair with artful two-inch by half-inch cutouts in a column that followed the outside of the leg. I kinda liked those, but never had a pair. Jeans are now sold pre-faded on the thighs, and some even sport a faded circle on the back pocket to look like a can of chewing tobacco lives there.

And the price of jeans, intact or deliberately aged, continues to climb. From a modest under $20 price tag up to $275 and higher. For a pair of jeans? They look the same. But the label makes all the difference. To some. Not me. Remember, I’m the “love a sale” girl. I found a designer pair at my favorite secondhand store back in Iowa years ago. They were hung on the wall behind the register to keep them from “walking out of the store.” Used, they were still $75. Nah. I went with the Levis, Wranglers and Lawman jeans I found on the rack for $5 and $8. The ragged look is big now, but I prefer to wear my jeans out myself.

My girlfriend was in the Denver airport over Thanksgiving and was appalled by how this ragged style has gone to an extreme. “Kat, I don’t know how they stayed on this woman. The only intact parts were the leg seams. The rest of it was threads, no fabric. They probably cost the moon!” I’m picturing a woman in Louboutin pumps, a silk Michael Kor blouse and these ultra-frayed, pale blue remnants of a pair of jeans with a swatch of fabric making up the front and back bikini area, the white pockets hanging out below and a mishmash of thread crossing the length of her legs, side-to-side from a strip of 31-inch inseam material to the outside seam strip on each leg.  Yup, the 21st century version of fishnet stockings. Let’s call these high-fashion pieces “elevated, deconstructed blue jeans.”  “There wasn’t even enough fabric to make a decent rag,” she told me.

So, the more ragged the better is today’s blue jeans fashion statement, I guess.  I wonder what Levi Strauss would think. I can see him shaking his head. From a heavy duty, long-wearing necessity that built his fortune to ridiculously expensive, deliberate barely-there rags. Who’d have thunk it?  

 I have to tell you my favorite ragged jeans’ moment. My now-husband-then-boyfriend and I were out fishing on Buffalo Bill reservoir in his boat. I had on a pair of super-faded, comfy blue jeans with the knees blown out, because, you know, fishing. Icky stuff gets on you, so wear old jeans. My boyfriend reached over and ripped out the strings across one knee. I thought that was pretty nervy. He tied a knot in the middle of them, got down on one knee in his boat and asked me to marry him, holding out the symbolic knot of my jeans’ threads to me. Pretty romantic and original. I thought so, anyway. So, we tied the knot. The legal knot. I had that five-threaded knot framed. It hangs by our bed. He gets me.