Jeans!!!

Thoughts on denim

Post Script from How To Be A Good Consumer:

No further notes (all my sentenced thoughts were pretty tidy!) but I do feel like I deprived you of some excellent visuals from the last newsletter. When I was describing my childhood with - “…We’ve aggregated all of the alluring imagery/arresting art that has affected us since birth into a picture of idealized idolatry. Mine is an amalgam of YA fantasy, femme fatale movies and Alexander McQueen shows” - I meant this (Getty watermark included):

And when I was talking about How I Want To Be Perceived I meant, what references do we cobble together - over a childhood, a lifetime - that help us emulate a character(s) we want to show to friends and strangers? Mine are:

Sorry, Madame X’s head got cut off. I wish I had saved the photos from the Cobrasnake and Skullset years to show you what I was wearing.

What’s your avatar’s moodboard?

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Denim!!!

Recently, I had such a nice and varied conversation with my friend Phoebe Lovatt. And, while we chatted about lots of things (said chat will be available on her podcast Deep Read around February 14th - happy valentine’s day to you), she mentioned something that’s stuck with me. [I love when people tell me things about myself that I haven’t already put into words.] She noted that the items I gather for this newsletter are often wacky, unusual and not tied to any particular trends. Also really expensive. This is true. I rarely write about what’s actually happening in fashion because I’m more interested in philosophizing about why I like what I like at any given time and hope it resonates with some strangers (it does!). I don’t think we need more platforms for - nor am I good at - interpreting trends but I do notice them and a lot of what we wear and buy is based on something that’s infiltrated our subconsciousness from the Trendsetters’ fickle missives. In looking back at past issues of this newsletter, I tend to lean on denim as an example of how the trend cycle functions/is designed to make us buy more things we don’t need. Everyone has jeans, they’re the most relatable category.

Jean trends are funny because they make sweeping generalizations (“The skinny jean is dead” et al) at an attempt to lasso the widest swath of audience but I argue that once a consumer’s style and fit is found, most people stick with their preference. I am thinking of my dad who has worn the same straight leg, mid-rise denim since he was a teenager. He tucks his t-shirts in and belts the pant, it’s quite stylish. The trends for denim are also funny because their pendulum swing is so lazily broad. Skinny to wide leg and back. High rise to low rise and from cropped to long. And the trend shifts happen annually. If we’re looking at recent runways, the jeans we should be wearing now are made out of leather.

I thought about writing a short history of jeans but you can find a better researched version on the internet. It’s an interesting story arc that begins as practical durability and blossoms into a now $65 billion industry (which, btw, is also Michael Bloomberg’s net worth) that peddles every imaginable shape and style and deconstruction of the stalwart leg encasement. And all of them represent an identity. Blue collar workers, hippies, Marlon Brando at his peak, Jane Birkin, TLC… The reference list is long.

I own seventeen pairs of jeans. They’re in the middle-ground fluctuation of leg width and length, so nothing *crazy.* Some are a wacky color or printed but overall they don’t stray far from the acceptable definition of pant. They each help me build who I feel like being, on any given day, with my outfit. Most of them are vintage, obviously. There are two styles I gravitate towards. 1) hot girl jeans 2) jeans I can wear on an airplane. Most of them are Levi’s. I like the 517’s boot cut and the 501’s classic straight leg, narrow hip (particularly the 501 Student Fit which was designed for boys). By “hot girl” I mean glued-on, 100% cotton so there’s no give and it’s uncomfortable to sit for long periods of time because the center seam is gnawing my labia, but my butt looks incredible. By “wear on an airplane” I am referring to the wide legged option that usually has a low stretch material content.