Style HotLine: Life in style

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Life in style

Jeans, a major fashion statement!
Torn, trashed, worn out, blue, black, pink… Jeans or otherwise known as denim is very much part of history of fashion. In the eighteenth century as trade, slave labour, and cotton plantations increased, workers wore jean cloth because the material was very strong and it did not wear out easily. During 19th century California gold rush, the miners wanted clothes that did not tear easily. 1853, Leob (later changed his name to Levi) Strauss started a wholesale business, supplying clothes. The 1930's was about westerns… Cowboys became very popular, so did jeans. After the 1940's war, rival companies like Wrangler and Lee, began to compete with Levi. In the 1950's, denim became popular with the young people. It was the symbol of the teenage rebel. 1960-70's was about the hippies and the cold war. Different styles of jeans were made, to match the 60's fashions: embroidered jeans, painted jeans, psychedelic jeans... In the 1980's jeans turned into high fashion clothing. Famous designers started making their own styles of jeans, with their own labels on them. Thus the sales of jeans soared. 90’s came with different finishes, new cuts, shapes, styles, or in the form of aged, authentic, vintage jeans. They were discovered in markets and not in conventional jeans stores. 21st Century is now about reinventing it! Yes, something decidedly interesting is happening in the world of denim now. Jeans are back on designers catwalks, at Armani, Chanel, Dior, Chloé and Versace; Callie Cline, FNKY, Kiana Dulce… Now feathered, beaded, decorated, beat-up, thrashed… Denim is definitely making another major fashion statement!