Cultural Artifact Essay †Blue Jeans Essay

Blue jeans in the last thirty years have attained such world wide popularity that they have find to be considered an American icon. However jeans have not always been held in high stead, simply rather have had a troubled archives including its beginnings within the works class movement, being considered unsavory by phantasmal leaders and also seen as a mutinous statement about western decadence. match to the University of Toronto, no other lop has served as an example of term ambivalence and ambiguity than luscious jeans in the storey of fashion.Throughout this essay I will discuss how jeans have bring about such a common treasured and flush expensive feature crossing over class, gender, age, regional, and national lines as reflected by the many changing political views and acceptance from various social classes over the past 50 years. History of Blue Jeans According to the University of Toronto, sullen jeans were sooner created for the California scorch miners in the mid-nineteenth century by the Morris Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant who relocated to overbold York in 1847.Mr Strauss fate and the history of habilitate changed forever when in 1872 he received an offer from Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno Nevada. Mr. Davis, in order to purify the durability of the pants that he made for his clients, had been adding metal rivets to the highly punctuate seams. The idea was successful and he wished to patent it, but due to financial constraints required a partner and hence Levi became the financial backer and partner.In 1873, the new partners received a patent for an improvement in fixture Pocket-Openings, and thus the history of blue jeans as we know them began. Blue jeans were originally called waist overalls by Levi Strauss and Co and in the 1920s these were the most widely used workers pants in America. The name of these trousers changed to jeans in the 1960s when Levi Strauss and Co. recognized that this was what the product was be ing called by the young, hip juvenile boys.The history of waist overalls continues as the history of blue jeans. Jeans is now loosely understood to refer to pants made out of a particularized type of fabric called denim (Fashion Encyclopedia). Blue Jeans through the decades The popularity of blue jeans blossom out among working people, such as farmers and the ranchers of the American West. According to the Encyclopedia of Fashion, in the 1930s jeans became so popular among cowboys that Wrangler formed just to generate denim work clothing for those who rode the range.Jeans have tended to follow along in popularity with popular culture as evident with the popular Western films which open adventure and romance in the adventures of the cowboys who rode horses, shot bad guys, and wore blue jeans. Those who wished to come later on the day-after-day, rugged look of the cowboys they saw in films began to wear jeans as casual wear (Fashion Encyclopedia). This effect is not hard to un derstand, as even right away fashion trends are greatly influenced by what highly publicized celebrities take aim to wear.During World War II blue jeans became part of the official coherent of the Navy and Coast Guard, and became even more popular when worn as off-duty leisure clothing by many other soldiers. In his book, Jeans A Cultural History of an American Icon, James Sullivan states that the rise of the popularity of jeans after the WWII can greatly be attributed to the influence of the film and music industry, during the mid-fifties many young people began to wear jeans when they saw them on rebellious young American film stars such as Marlon Brando and James Dean.By 1950, Levis began selling nationally and other brands started emerging, such as lee side Coopers and each with its own particular fit (Sullivan 287). According to the University of Toronto, in the 1960s and 1970s jeans were embraced by the nonconformist hippie youth movement, and the history of blue jeans eve n gets linked to the downfall of communism. Behind the iron curtain, jeans became a figure of western decadence and individuality and as such were highly sought. Jeans had give-up the ghost extremely popular, but were still mainly worn by working people or the young.In the 1980s through to the 1990s jeans were no longer seen as rebellious or a source of individuality, but they were transformed as the term designer jeans was discovered. Many designers such as Jordache and Calvin Klein came on board to create expensive jeans and some jeans even reached haute couture status (Fashion Encyclopedia). In the new millennium denim is seen on designer catwalks and thither are now hundreds of styles, types and labels available and of various price ranges. Changing PopularityAccording to Peter Beagle in his book American Denim A modernistic menage Art, the popularity of jeans can be attributed to the fact that jeans can be seen to embrace the American democratic values of independence, free dom and equality. Some Americans even consider jeans to be the national uniform. Blue jeans have evolved from a garment associated exclusively with hard work to one associated with leisure. What began as work habiliments has transformed into one of the hottest items available on the consumer market today. What was once uniform associated with low culture has undergone a reversal in status.Blue jeans were the first off to accomplish a rather revolutionary cultural achievement take upper class status to a lower class garment. closing curtain At one point or another throughout history, blue jeans have been the uniform of many groups and are considered the one garment of clothing that has remained hip for over a century and has survived allthing from World War II to the eighties. For half a century blue jeans have helped define every youth movement, and every effort of older generations to deny the passing of youth. fifty years ago America invented the concept of teenager, and it is probably no resemblance that the enduring character of blue jeans, claiming independence and the right to self-expression, can be traced to the same time. Jeans were once seen as clothing for minority groups such as workers, hippies or rebellious youth, but are now embraced by the dominant American culture as a whole. Works Cited bodily Culture. Utoronto. ca. University of Toronto Department of History, University of Toronto, n. d. WebEuropean Culture 19th century Blue Jeans. Fashionencyclopedia. com. Fashion Encyclopedia, Advameg, June 2010. Web. Modern World 1980 2003, Designer Jeans. Fashionencyclopedia. com. Fashion Encyclopedia, Advameg, June 2010. Web. Sullivan, James. Jeans A Cultural History of an American Icon. New York Penguin, 2007. Print. George, Diana and Trimbur, John. Reading Culture Contexts for tiny reading and writing. New York Longman, 2007. Print. Beagle, Peter. American Denim A New Folk Art. New York Harry N. Abrams, 1975. Print.