In the XXI century jeans became one of the staples of clothing of first and second-world population. The reason is today’s fashion trends.
One of the earliest predecessor of jeans were thick cotton clothes brought from India in XVI century for sailors. They clipped the clothes to make them fit. The history of jeans started in the middle of XIX century in San Francisco when young woesome and thrown from his home Hebrew Levi Strauss sew the first pair of paints for miners and gold-diggers. People were satisfied with these comfortable pants and Levi developed his business.
When Levi understood that he should keep his product popular , tailor Jacob Davis appeared. He had to cooperate with Strauss because of lack of solvency. Jacob invented rivets which made pockets harder. But the real jeans revolution came in post-war years (50’s of XX century). Pants were popularized by celebrities such as Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marlon Brando. At first jeans were popular mostly among the subcultures but then they’ve spread among others.
From above, it is possible to give the task of the research: to review the history of jeans’ popularity and their role in XXI century fashion, and analysis of Kyiv citizens’ standard clothes.
In the XX century jeans were provocative from the point of conservative morale (jeans are unisex), at first they meant protest, then freethinking, then energy and sexuality and finally solidity and wealth. And what’s the meaning of them in the age of information development and free-speech?
Nowadays, it’s easy to learn fashion trends. You shouldn’t be fashion expert, just pay attention to the outfit of the strangers on the streets. The usual male dress (depending on the weather) is:
1) Warm – jeans, snickers, t-shirt or shirt (also may be jeans)
2) Cold – jeans with lining, boots, cardigan, sweater.
In my opinion, everything is way more complicated for female: it’s well-known fact that most of women consider wearing the same clothes for a few days as a bad taste. But the most popular clothes among women are:
1) Warm – blouse, shirt, snickers, shoes (maybe with heel), jeans, skirts, shorts.
2) Cold – sweater, cardigan, boots (maybe with heel), jeans.
According to author’s independent research in Kyiv underground, nearly 80% had such outfit, others (approximately 20%) don’t follow the trends or don’t pay much attention to their look. Why we have what we have, that is the question.
Every person want to dress in the way he or she like but not everyone ever thought about imposition of personal preferences. Let’s look briefly on our subject: we can see a lot of colorful clothes – blue, green, pink, black, multi-colored . There also a lot of clothes with holes. Are they made to reduce spends of cloth, or they appeared after attack of wild dogs, or after falling on the pavement, but doesn’t sound convincingly… Birth of the new styles strongly connected with desire to be unique, but when the new trend emerge, society copying it even if this trend is nonsense. Why?
One of the hypothesis is desire not to show up in a crowd, busy with work shopping and other routine. It’s impossible to see the man in a gown – it’s odd and very impractical. The thing is that the practical clothes are the biggest trend among average people. And in case with jeans reasonable price and good quality strongly connected, cotton thread (stretch, velvet earlier) very practical material – slowly worn, pleasant for body and allow to move freely.
Of course, let’s avoid cases when people buy smaller jeans to look more sexual or decorating them with jewelry.
The conclusion is that in XXI century average citizen don’t need something special, he want to move freely and don’t pay much attention. It’s hard to say what will be in the next century, but I thing that new fashion revolution will be started by those who tired of routine and want to spread their own ideas through the world.
