Fashion is an expression of humans’ innate need for belongingness, but fashion is also a venue for individuality. It’s ever-changing and elusive, so how did one humble work wear become a time-honored piece of clothing?
A wardrobe mainstay, denim is sturdy, wears out slowly, and looks better as it ages. There’s really no right or wrong way to wear them. Blue jeans practically advertise themselves. But there must be more to this humble work wear that it’s coveted by just about anyone.
History of Jeans
Denim is a twill constructed cotton fabric woven with a dyed warp and white filling threads. It comes from the phrase Serge de Nimes or serge from Nimes, a city in France that first reproduced this textile. Denim has been around for so many years, but it only became popular when the fabric was reinforced with rivets into sturdy work wear. Businessman Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis were behind this innovation.
In 1873, Strauss and Davis got the patent for the jeans we know today. The patent was then called Improvement for Fastening Pocket-Openings, a straightforward way to name Davis’s design.
Davis’s gold-mine customers wore through their denim pants so fast, and this concerned him. So he strategically placed reinforcing copper rivets at points of strain like the corners of pockets and the base of the fly. Strauss, his denim supplier, liked the idea so he supported its patent and production. In time, they modified it to their customers’ needs. The rivet at the crotch was removed because it is uncomfortable in the work of miners, though some argue it’s to save cost. Fast-forward fourteen decades, there’s about seven pairs of jeans in everyone’s wardrobe — for work, for play, for basically anything. But how exactly did this happen?
How jeans became mainstream
From the late 1880s to the 1930s, denim was the uniform of farm laborers and factory workers as overalls. In the later years, denim was widely used in ranches. It was in the 1940s, when soldiers took denim to war, that the fabric left its mark on people from different countries.
In the 50s that it started to be nicknamed jeans from the French jean fustian. Denim was worn by soldiers of Genoa, Italy, where fustian — a twilled cotton cloth, came from. Denim or jeans retained their utilitarian duty throughout the following years, but the civilians who adopted them began wearing them for leisurely activities.
Along with the war’s introduction of jeans across countries, television and movies paved the way towards deeply instilling denim in our culture.
Denim through time
As mentioned above, denim was originally for manual work. From mines to factories to ranches, it was not a trend but almost a uniform. However, its portrayal in media made encouraged new associations on the indigo fabric. For instance, movies in the 1930s portrayed tough guys always in denim. The growing interest in cowboys and the Wild West had people dressing up like them. The Rosie the Riveter war poster of the ’40s made jeans conventional for women. More so by Marilyn Monroe in her movie Clash by Night in 1952.
Not only across genders did denim become popular, but across generations too. James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause made jeans the symbol of rebellious teenagers. So did Marlo Brando in The Wild One. This association with deviance continued until the 1960s when denim became the fashion symbol of youth and activism.
From then on, denim became a staple in any movement or trend prevalent at the time. Civil rights movements of the sixties are raining bellbottoms and denim jackets. The hippie ’70s featured jeans with iron-on patches and embellishments as symbols for anti-establishment. Bob Marley’s denim-on-denim became as popular as his music. Then there’s the acid wash of the ’80s, baggy and ripped of the ’90s and the skinny jeans of the 2000s.
Jeans are a mainstay in pop culture as seen in movies such as Dirty Dancing and literature like in The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants.
On fashion theories
Beginning in the industrial revolution (late 18th and early 19th centuries), technologies improved the textile manufacturing industry. This determined people’s selection of clothing. The development of media (both print and broadcast) in the 19th century further perpetuated a sense of individuality in fashion. People began choosing clothing for their style, rather than a plain necessity, as mentioned in the trends above.
German sociologist Georg Simmel believed that the nature of fashion is deep-seated in the social hierarchy. Meaning, fashion trends trickle down from the elite (who start a trend to retain distinction) to the lower class (who imitate the trend for validation).
In 1963, Charles King challenged this concept with his trickle-across theory where he believes there is a simultaneous adoption of a trend by any group. George Field is of a similar disposition to King, and quite opposite Simmel. Field’s theory called the status-float phenomenon, involved fashion climbing from below, then across ages, genders, cultures, and social classes. Street fashion is an example of this. And for denim, perhaps a new meaning to bottoms-up?
Blue jeans’ popularity is closest to the two latter theories and completely disputes the first one. A modern example would be Princess Diana being the first British royalty to wear blue jeans. Another would be the 1990s comeback of denim overalls as seen in the runway, TV shows, and everyday use. Even across professions, we see Steve Jobs donning blue jeans like it’s his work uniform. Actually, how widely jeans are used to this day might be the only example we need.
An emblem of progress
Blue jeans generally represent the work force, from laborers of the industrial revolution to the contemporary blue-collar workers. It also suggests equality between sexes for both men and women can wear it.
Denim became the uniform that inspirited the civil rights movement. Its symbolism lies in being the recalled work-wear of fieldworkers and miners. The same work clothes were worn by African American workers. Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy were in jeans on their arrest in Alabama in 1963. This incident inspired protesters to dress the same during King’s March on Washington.
By donning blue jeans and overalls, activists made a point that racial caste was a problem that needed to be addressed. Denim signifies equal opportunities between sexes, through races, and across social classes.
In many social uprisings around the world, denim became the emblem. Such is the protest named “The Jeans Revolution” after the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus. #DenimDay2020 protested violence and showed support to sexual assault victims.
Blue Jeans as a Social Equalizer
Blue jeans especially have been a symbol of youth and rebellion. Tracey Panek, Levi Strauss & Co. historian, said that jeans were originally not intended as statement-making. Their association with progressivism is a modern concept.
It’s a paradox that despite being a staple in fashion for decades, blue jeans embody change. Its toughness made itself last long enough to be given new meanings. Anti-establishment. Nonconformity. Choice. Progress. The unspoken desires of humanity.
By putting all these theories and events together, these are the subtext that truly sells denim. Its deviance towards a fashion system that encouraged social divide for centuries; its timelessness that affords its user both individuality and belongingness; and its flexibility that support the wearer’s diverse endeavors.
Fashion is distinctive, a venue for self-expression; but it should not be divisive, wherein people are boxed into mere categories. The modest denim made this notion possible.
