Everyone has a pair of jeans. It could be that favorite pairyou've had forever, or a brand new pair you just bought with Sunday newspapercoupons. But everyone has jeans they wear and love. They're comfortable,durable, and follow fashion trends as closely as women's shoes. Many officesnow even allow jeans as part of their work wear, something that would have beenunheard of when jeans began to be popular. In fact, during the 1950s, somerestaurants and movie theaters refused to admit customers wearing jeans.
Jeans weren't always as fashionable as they are today. Infact, they were originally used as sturdy trousers worn by men and women infactories during World War II. In the 1950s, however, teenagers began wearingjeans as a form of rebellion against conformity, and by the 1970s, jeans were astaple of fashion wardrobes. They're available throughout the world, buttypically, jeans are considered a part of American culture, like baseball andapple pie.
One of the major changes that has occurred in the jeanindustry is the change from standard trouser-style jeans worn by men and womenprior to the 1950s. In the beginning, if you wanted to break in your jeans, youhad to do it the old fashioned way, which either involved wearing themfrequently for a long time, or dragging them on concrete and washing themfrequently to make them look more worn.
The introduction of bell bottom jeans, for example, provedthat jeans could be as much a fashion statement as a durable pair of pants. Nowstyles range from skin tight to large and baggy, available in every colorimaginable. You can get jeans with embroidery, patches, rhinestones, or evenbrand new jeans that look as though they've been worn for twenty years. Thereare designers who specialize in jeans (besides Levi and Wranglers).
These changes have come thanks to the advances in clothingproduction. Jeans can be mass produced, and with the different machines anddenim fabrics available, the only limit to jeans is the designers' imagination!In fact, the customer can become the designer, as well. You can take yourfavorite pair of jeans and customize them to your liking. Add embellishments,turn them into shorts, or grab some fabric pens and draw all over the fabric toturn them into a piece of art.
Because of the variety of jeans that are available, they canoffer a professional looking alternative to dress pants in the office,particularly for women. There are even some dark washed jeans that can bemistaken for black dress pants! And since they are so popular, and can be moreprofessional looking, offices are becoming more welcoming of jeans around theoffice, even if it isn't "casual Friday."
As far as jeans have come in almost seventy years, who knowswhat they'll look like seventy, fifty, or even twenty years from now? It couldbe that, as fashion develops, the jeans people wear years from now won't berecognized by the population as what we know as "jeans." For all weknow, the evolution of jeans will continue, and they'll become the more formalwear, leaving "dress pants" hanging in boutiques and closets in favorof pants that started as simply sturdy work pants for factory workers.
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Article byRebecca Stevenson of Fashion for Normal Women, the best place to find
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