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BLUE JEANS
Blue jeans are probably the single most representative article of
American clothing. They were originally invented by tailor Jacob Davis, who
together with dry-goods salesman Levi Strauss patented the idea in 1873 as
durable clothing for miners. Blue jeans (also known as dungarees) spread
among workers of all kinds in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
especially among cowboys, farmers, loggers, and railroad workers. During
the 1950s, actors Marlon Brando and James Dean made blue jeans fashionable
by wearing them in movies, and jeans became part of the image of teenage
rebelliousness. This fashion statement exploded in the 1960s and 1970s as
Levi's became a fundamental part of the youth culture focused on civil
rights and antiwar protests. By the late 1970s, almost everyone in the
United States wore blue jeans, and youths around the world sought them. As
designers began to create more sophisticated styles of blue jeans and to
adjust their fit, jeans began to express the American emphasis on
informality and the importance of subtlety of detail. By highlighting the
right label and achieving the right look, blue jeans, despite their worker
origins, ironically embodied the status consciousness of American fashion
and the eagerness to approximate the latest fad.
Blue jeans were one of the most important garments of the 1960s and
1970s for both women and men. In 1971 Levi Strauss & Co., the firm that
invented denim blue jeans in 1873, received the Coty Fashion Critics'
Award, the highest award of the American fashion industry. What began as
work clothing for laborers became the symbol of the youth culture and, in
effect, the uniform of nonconformity. Soon the rise of so-called designer
blue jeans meant that Levi's and Wrangler had to compete with jeans by
fashion notables such as Calvin Klein, Fiorucci, and Gloria Vanderbilt.
It is not always easy to tell the difference between basic clothing
and fashionable clothing. Especially today, fashion designers often use
inexpensive and functional items of clothing as inspiration. Blue jeans,
for instance, originated as functional work clothing for miners and
farmers. Yet today, even people who dress in jeans, T-shirts, and sports
clothes may be influenced by fashion. One year, fashionable jeans may have
narrow legs; the next year the legs may be baggy.
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