You Are Your Jeans
The first time I paid more than $50 for jeans, I was 12 years old and my whole existence hung in the balance.
They were tight, acid-washed, with splatters of pale blue and white and zippers slipped up the back of each calf. None of those details mattered, though. What did was the small white triangle with a question mark on the back pocket: They were Guess.
I whined, cajoled and saved, and finally they were mine. And for a while, I felt cool.
Very little has changed. I pay four times as much for jeans, but a lot of that pathetic investment is directed toward the shapes and stitching that swoop, curl and intertwine on my rear territory. Like a marquee announcing that night’s show, the butt portion of jeans is emblazoned with an encyclopedic offering of signs and symbols.
Gone are the days of identifying the designer--and drawing conclusions about the wearer--through a simple label. That has been replaced by manifold varieties of stitching, buttons and folds. Or, wickedly, the lack thereof.
You are your jeans: Know that when you walk down the street, or more likely, to your car, people aren’t giving you the once over but zeroing in on your behind to surmise your personality, taste, maybe even your annual income. (Then again, they could just be checking out your derriere.)
Of course, it takes a certain kind of intelligence, if you can call it that, to interpret what’s parading around L.A.’s denim-clad environs. The basics are easy to learn and will throw open a whole new world of ways to scorn strangers.
Do your back pockets have a swooping stitch with a small red label? 7 for All Mankind, gateway designer jeans and probably your first foray into the world of $130-plus denim. You are a fashion follower, conservative in your clothing, but you care. Worn by women of all ages, 7s have become as recognizable as Starbucks.
Pockets with a button flap and horseshoe stitching? True Religion. Your subscription to In Touch Weekly is a secret to no one who sees you wearing these $250 jeans. Every move Jessica Simpson and her minions make, you follow. Your MySpace profile has a custom-colored background, your favorite show is “The OC” and you have bounced at least two checks in the last year.
A Picasso-esque L shape on your bum? Rock & Republic. An attempt to veer off the beaten path, but not too far. You go to Costa Rica for vacation (every year), the tank tops you wear always have at least six rhinestones on them and your dream evening involves a glass of Chardonnay and “The Bodyguard” soundtrack you keep hidden in a bottom drawer. Or maybe it’s Hootie & the Blowfish?
Just to note: A man wearing any of these should be viewed with absolute suspicion. He is a cloying advertising assistant or browbeaten by his girlfriend/boyfriend/wife.
Another note: Now that you’ve mastered the language, some designers are aiming to make it obsolete.
They’re moving the new slang of denim detailing toward the postmodern, with the likes of Earnest Sewn, J Brand and Tsubi forcing you to examine their corporate markings under a microscope. No easy labels or chevrons here. Instead, truth is hidden in the cut around the ankles, the alignment of the pockets, the stretch of the thigh, the wash of the fabric. Wearing the new jeans shouts, “I’ve seen the future”--or, perhaps, “I’ve read W magazine’s description of fall trends.”
It seems to me that some in the industry are out to defy denim know-it-alls and say, “We’re just about the jeans, man.” I don’t buy it, especially at $150 or more. Yes, these jeans say fashion-forward, but what, exactly, does that mean?
That I need new jeans.
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Jeans by the Numbers
5/20/1873: The day that tailor Jacob Davis and dry-goods merchant Levi Strauss were granted a patent for denim trousers reinforced with rivets, creating modern blue jeans.
16: The century when sailors known as Genes wore cotton work pants at the port of Genoa, Italy, giving birth, so the story goes, to the word “jeans.”
1926: The year Lee Jeans introduced the zippered fly.
$46,532: The amount Levi Strauss & Co. paid for a pair of its own britches, dating to the 1880s, on EBay.
501: The number assigned in 1873 to Levi’s original denim “waist overalls” and that later became the lot number customers cited to order the pants from the company catalog.
40,000: The weight in pounds of pumice stone and volcanic rock used every week at the International Garment Finishing plant in Long Beach, which also distresses jeans with sanders, bleach and grinders.
1988: The year Anna Wintour put a pair of stonewashed Guess jeans (pairing them with a Christian Lacroix top) on her first cover as Vogue’s editor in chief.
