Make ‘em blue, make ‘em mine

What should one wear with blue jeans?

Blue Jeans by Shulton, naturally!

If only I’d kept that bottle! A bottle—used—of the 1970s fragrance recently sold for $76 on E-Bay.

Gone are the days when we could wear a fragrance anywhere except the shower and, possibly, your own back yard.

Blue jeans, though, are another matter entirely. Not only were “waist overalls” designed nearly a century before 1970, there is every indication our fascination with this durable garment will take us far into the next.

The older generation didn’t call them blue jeans: to them, the pants were dungarees. Teenagers in this age group quit their education rather than wear such shameful clothing to school.

The cotton fabric had a rich and useful history because of its durability and ability to adapt to the form of the wearer. It seems the Genoese (jean?) Navy used it for pants that could be worn wet or dry. The rumour is the jeans were washed by being dragged behind the ship.

But, were they cool?

Well, things change. My generation soon realized we could really get under the skin of our elders by wearing denim (some say the material used to come from the city of Nimes, France: de Nîmes . . . denim) pants. The fact they were tough and cheap added to their worth.* Embellishing them with markers and embroidery irritated The Parents even more. When we started patching them and darning them....

I’m not sure when teenagers stop wanting to mortify their parents, but, sometime between high school and university graduation, that other quality of blue jeans began to be more important: its pliancy. Jeans sculpted the figure. We wore them flare-legged and hip-hugging. Dressing up for a party? Press the jeans!

What about these days? It seems ancient denim has taken on historical qualities. It seems it has become a treasure, valued not only for its twill weave, not only for the patina of authentically distressed indigo and fibre.** How I regret throwing out those three threadbare pants last week!

Pure cotton is not necessarily the gold standard in blue jeans anymore. Many manufacturers are weaving in some Spandex to hurry up the form-fitting tendency of denim. At my age, do I need that?

On a more cheerful note, in these “green” days, recycled blue jean is becoming a popular insulation material used in the construction of houses. Cotton batt insulation is manufactured from the left-overs of making jeans, and many advantages are claimed: it’s made from natural fibers, it’s non-toxic (no safety equipment needed), no itching, no formaldehyde off-gassing, 10 per cent less sound transmission, better performance at low temperatures and in windy conditions (fiberglass can lose 35 to 50 per cent of its R value when the outdoor temperature is 70 degrees colder than the indoor temperature), same fire performance as fibreglass, contains a low toxic boric acid as flame moisture and insect repellent....

I wonder what Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis would have to say about that?



* www.jeansinfo.org

** www.cbc.ca

www.aip.org