June 2, 2014
Greetings from beneath the 501,
It’s interesting to look at the important social questions
of an era. Last week, perhaps, was not the
best time to look for one, in case you got stopped by the wrong question
There was a time when you bought a pair of jeans and it was
like beginning a relationship.
Before there were thousands of choices from any one brand of
jeans. Before they were sized and
lifestyle categorized. The time just
after jeans were worn exclusively by farmers and railroad workers, and right
before they became high fashion. That
time. There has been all manner of phases to tempt
us to own more pairs. Acid washed. Stone
Washed. The torn jeans. Slim cut, boot cut, low riders, bibs. Multiple pockets, brocade, embossing, leather
accents.
Before all of those choices, there were just jeans. Or ‘Levi’s’ as we called all blue jeans,
including Lee and Wrangler’s.
When you bought jeans they were so stiff that trying them on
was like pulling on cardboard. If you
were not careful you would lose a layer of skin. You would walk stilt legged to the mirror at the
Yankee store and stand there trying to imagine what the jeans would eventually
look like. You knew they would shrink, but how much and where? You knew they would relax, but could you
survive until then? And then you just
gambled.
Washing your blue jeans was the next phase of the
relationship. You would learn if this
was going to work out or not.
The first several times you washed your jeans, they had to
be alone, since they turned the water blue.
When they seemed to be about the right color, you could put them in the
dryer. After they came out of the dryer,
they would hopefully be approximately the size you were hoping for.
Humiliating side note.
When I was a boy, my mom would buy jeans for me, a little bigger than
needed so I could grow into them. The pant
legs would be rolled up, and the waist cinched with a belt to avoid tripping or
losing my dignity in some other way. It
would sometimes take a year to get to the point where they fit in something
close to normal. The first twelve months
of wearing jeans I looked like I inherited pants from my grandpa.
Even More Humiliating side note: I had a pair of jeans that
I was growing out of, so they were ‘floods’; a little too short in the
legs. My mom bought some groovy fabric
and sewed it on the cuffs to extend them.
Just to make them more fashionable, (so I wouldn’t be embarrassed) she
put in a matching panel on the sides of the legs to give them the ‘bell bottoms’
all the kids wanted.
I remember reaching an age when I bought my first pair of
jeans with my own money. It was a rite
of passage. I knew that from then on I
would be master of my own destiny. No
more iron on patches over worn knees. No
more groovy cuffs.
You don’t own a pair of jeans as much as you create a
partner. After the initial breaking in
phase, the jeans begin to find how to settle on your hips, or form to your
backside, or where to drape over your shoes.
They know you need a little room to bend at the knee, or that space
around the waist that allows you to lean over without cramping your breathing
style.
Jeans were made to get a little frayed around the heel. The knees fade where you have been changing
the tire, playing on the grass, or begging for forgiveness. The seat softens from sitting on the porch,
the swing, the bumper of your first car.
The pockets sag and loosen just enough so you can dig out your last
quarter.
And in the relationship, there would be a day you had to put
them in the washing machine to shake loose the grass stains, the rust mark, the
grease from where you wiped your hand changing the tire. And each time they came back to you from the
dryer, they held on to you in a warm hug for a while. Then there was a brief adjustment as they got
to know your body again, and then you were in sync.
And it seemed you never wanted to say goodbye to your
jeans. The knees gave out, the waistband
separated, a seam split, and you patched them up and held on. Maybe they became shorts, and then a purse,
or you used them to patch something else, and then one day they just were
gone. And you started a new relationship
with another pair.
Last week the question came up: “How often do you wash your
jeans?” Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh suggests
that you don’t need to wash them; ever. That’s
what elevated the question to ‘important social issue’ status. Perhaps.
It is a strange question, in part because it’s never been
asked. There are the purists who say never
wash the denim. At the other end are
those who cringe at the thought of all that bacteria clinging to jeans that
have been worn and not sanitized.
You may not have already entered this national dialogue, and
perhaps that saves you from thinking about a silly question. (If you want to jump in, answer my survey question
here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VYB8MV7 Results will be on my blog post )
Or sometimes your mom tells you.
Hope this finds you waiting by the dryer,
David
Copyright © 2014 David Smith
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