[lit-ideas] Re: Truth, Justice and the American Jeans
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 29 Apr 2004 14:33:51 PDT
>Banana Republic (a wonderfully ironic name), Gap, and Old Navy (all are
actually the same company) have clobbered Levis out of the market.<
Andreas, you are so, like, five minutes ago.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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[from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/fashion/27DRES.html?pagewanted=1]
No Small Price to Pay for Denim Perfection
By GUY TREBAY
April 27, 2004
In the beginning there was Levi's. And Levi's begat Wrangler and Lee. And
Wrangler and Lee begat Jordache and Calvin Klein and Sergio Valente. And then,
moved by the mystical and inexorable forces of the American marketplace, the
jeans makers all went forth and multiplied. By now every parent of a teenager is
aware of this reality. The days when the crucial decision in purchasing a pair
of blue jeans was as simple as predicting the degree of inseam shrinkage are as
remote as the Gold Rush.
To shop for blue jeans nowadays is to be confronted with a welter of styles,
cuts, fits, washes, hip-heights, denims, studs, grommets and pocket details.
Although a majority of jeans sold to Americans cost less than $20, it is the
high end of the market, where prices are the stuff of sticker shock, that seems
to have consumers entranced.
"It's not just in New York, it's everywhere now," said Claire Dupuis, a trend
forecaster for Cotton Incorporated, a trade group. "I was recently in a store
called Copper Penny in Charleston, S.C., and they were blowing out the jeans
from Seven, Habitual and Notify."
In industry parlance those brands are called premium denims, priced from $75 to
more than $250. Even as Levi's attempts to dig itself out from a seven-year
slump in sales, the new brands have raced to claim the real estate vacated by
the iconic jeans makers' loss of hegemony.
Among the better known labels there are Rogan, Seven for All Mankind, Miss Sixty
and Diesel, one of whose founders, Adriano Goldschmied, is widely credited with
having originated the notion of "premium" jeans. And there are also the scores
of brands that one might call the children of Goldschmied: Earl, Chip and
Pepper, Paper Denim & Cloth, G-Star, Citizens of Humanity, Habitual, Notify and
Blue Guru.
......
...It is the rare pair of premium jeans that comes without an instruction manual
("Atencion," reads the hang tag on one pair of $240 Rogan jeans. "This denim is
designed to age quicker, so take care in wear and do not hesitate to repair.
Easy on the washing -- hand wash -- and hand dry -- in the sun")...
"Consumers can identify in one second the difference between Japanese and
Chinese denim," said Deirdre Maloney, an owner of Brand Pimps and Media Whores,
a fashion consulting company in New York. "They know the back story on
construction and fabrics, the grommets, the washes, the finishing."
They know, said Tom Ovejas, a salesman at Barneys Co-op on Madison Avenue, that
Diesel jeans have a generous rise; that Paper Denim & Cloth has distinctive
yellow stitching, a grommet on the fly and washes numbered to indicate imaginary
years of wear. They know that Chip and Pepper jeans are based on 1950's styles;
that the most desirable of all the Levi's special edition vintage jeans are the
ones that have a capital E on the tiny red rear pocket label. They know that
Rogans are what everyone wears on "Friends."
Customers who are true fanatics may have added themselves to the waiting list
for a pair of $280 jeans from Saddlelite, a cult brand that makes its denims
from cotton that is woven on antique Japanese looms and sewn in limited lots in
Glendale, Calif.
......
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