!: Old Gringo Purses Discount: April 2011

!: The History of Jeans

The 21st century has seen the revival of the customary denim jeans. Top high-fashion designers such as Chanel and Dior have re-introduced jeans into their catwalk shows. The celebrated Gucci label hit the catwalk with a pair of torn knee-length jeans which were heavily distressed and adorned with beads and feathers. Once launched on the market, these sold out instantly for over 00 a pair. As well as boho chic, jeans are taking inspiration from many other fashion themes along with utility, soldiery and urban chic to name just a few and many other designer brands are also concentrating on denim revival along with Police 883, Duck & Cover and Firetrap. But denim is nothing new in the fashion arena, in fact denim jeans have been colse to for centuries.

First entering history in the 18th century, jean cloth, now known as denim, was worn by workers in the cotton plantations and other slave labour industries of the Far East due to it's vigor and durability. By the early 19th century, denim was being worn by the gold miners of California. These miners were constantly snagging clothing on sharp rocks so wore denim over their clothes to stop them being torn. It was also in California that denim first started being sold commercially as clothing by Leob Strauss who later changed his name to Levi and jeans in the format that we know and love were born.

It wasn't until the 1930s that denim started to come to be extremely fashionable over America. At colse to this time, there was a surge of Western movies along with In Old Santa Fe (1934) and Song of the Gringo (1936) which bought denim clad cowboys in front of the fashion conscious. Cowboys were adventurous, courageous and bright so people bought jeans as a way of capturing this persona.

Due to the war, during the 1940s very few jeans were physically produced but their nearnessy was made known to the rest of the world through American soldiers who wore denim when they were off duty. Slightly after the war, the production of jeans restarted and new clubs entered the denim store along with Wrangler and Lee.

Jeans were the clothing of option for youths in the 1950s. It was seen as rebellious clothing after films such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955) showed James Dean wearing them and were therefore a must-have items. In Western countries, by the 1960s jeans has begun to be styled in many distinct forms reflecting the work on of fashion in this era. Styles included heavy embroidery, psychedelic colours and embellishments as the hippy movement emerged.

By the 1980's clothing brands had begun to make their own lines of jeans in a wide array of distinct styles. Jeans could be bought on the high street in normal clothing stores. It was during the 1980's that the Police 883 brand added designer jeans to their fashion collection. Now synonymous with high-quality denim jeans. Police jeans wow the fashion arena with their designs season after season.

The 1990s saw a move away from customary denim jeans. This was a generational issue with the rebellious youth turning their back on most styles which were still being worn by their 'un cool' parents. Instead bold new designs were produced which incorporated the boot leg cut, hipster waists and low risers.

Today, the store is flooded with denim jeans but the fashion known buyer is still looking for jeans that will make them stand out from the crowd and fit in with their lifestyles. The Police 883 jeans brand includes lots of styles from old-school vintage look jeans to contemporary crisp designs.