Jeans – the design of an icon
or: to each his own
Jeans belong to everyday work life just like the office chair. Both have to fit and be comfortable. Their designs are both based on the rules of ergonomics. The secret of well-fitting jeans lies in the combined effect of cut, fabric and workmanship. New trends breathe life into the blue legend over and over again.
Jeans are one of the most complicated pieces of clothing to manufacture. They require a series of work steps, from harvesting the cotton fibres to the finished product. Well-fitting jeans therefore require a lot of expertise – especially in cutting technology. This good fit was an unachievable ideal for a long time, as can be seen in the fact that the traditional jeans industry didn’t design women’s fit jeans for a long time. One indication of the severity of the problem is a study on fit conducted by Levi Strauss in 2010, in which 60,000 women’s measurements were taken to support the development of three fit prototypes.
More than just a fit: Figure-shaping
The Italian jeans designer Adriano Goldschmied is a master of feminine fit, as the following quote from an Internet forum shows: »AG Jeans make my ass look amazing! ... i love the jeans from ag adriano goldshmied (sic!) they fit very well!« AG stands for Adriano Goldschmied and the jeans label that he started in 2001.
Goldschmied has worked on the design of women’s jeans since 1971 and is considered the inventor of jeggings: jeans that, thanks to lycra, are as elastic as leggings. The requirements of feminine jeans – softness and figure-shaping – found their ultimate expression in jeggings. Today Adriano Goldschmied, now 67 years old, is considered the inventor of ‘premium jeans’. Goldschmied works in his own jeans laboratory in Vernon, California, where he develops elaborate fabrics and ‘treatments’. Treatments are effects that result from washing, dyeing, sanding, foaming, coating, spraying, etc. The partially hand-crafted finishes are meant to create an authentic ‘used’ effect – and they are one of the reasons why jeans passed the 200 euro mark at the end of the 1990s. Because the better the quality of the cotton and the more the jeans are handled by hand, the more expensive they become.
The influence of Japanese jeans culture
Goldschmied has been in the jeans business for over 40 years, developing the jeans brands Diesel, Replay, AG Adriano Goldschmied and Gold Sign. He gets the material for his premium jeans from Japanese denim producers that established themselves at the end of the 1960s in the Okoyama region. As he noted in his interview, "because they spend two months learning about the weave, colour and construction of the denim". Often they are small family businesses that work on American hand looms from the early days of denim production. Selvage denim – the white woven edge with the red stripes that has become a mark of quality – is made on looms that are 60 to 70 cm wide. The outside of the jeans leg is laid out for cutting on this edge. The handcrafted quality of selvage denim involves two additional Japanese production idiosyncrasies:
- colouring with natural indigo plants which, in comparison to chemical colours, create a deeper, unique ocean-blue tone.
- a thread colouring technique that only colours the surface of the thread, not its core. This specialty lends denim a more beautiful patina as it wears.
The unique thing about Japanese denim is its manual production, which allows every finished piece to look slightly different, making each one a unique creation.
An original for all eternity
Japan is not just a supplier of premium denim; it is also the centre of a new purism when it comes to jeans. Since the first jeans boom in the 1960s, which developed out of repaired second-hand jeans from America, Japan has developed a lively jeans culture. American jeans brands, like the newly reissued originals from Levi’s, Lee and Wrangler, continue to be the hottest on the market. However, there are already many Japanese labels, often one-person enterprises, that are dedicating themselves to new interpretations of jeans. One good example is Anachronorm, a label founded in 2004 in Okoyama that is inspired by the jeans styles of the 1960s and focuses on designing new interpretations of originals: four men’s lines convey the spirit of the collection through their individual lifestyles. This can be understood as standardised ‘personalisation’.
A plea for ecological production
The essential feature of jeans purism is doing without treatments. Instead, owners wear these raw denim jeans without washing them for about six months. In this process, the desired personalised wear and tear look develops on its own. Doing without treatments can – aside from aesthetic considerations – be seen as an ecological statement. What is even more spectacular, however, is when 66-year-old François Girbaud, the second central figure in European jeans culture alongside Goldschmied, champions ecological jeans production: because the Frenchman is the inventor of the stonewash treatment method. Now he promotes doing away with water and chemicals. To still be able to create the ‘used’ effects, though, he has developed a laser method that reduces water usage by 97.5 per cent. Girbaud is the founder of the ‘Closed’ jeans label. Unlike Goldschmied, Girbaud’s work takes place in the context of the fashion world: together with his wife Marithé, he runs the fashion label ‘Marithé & François Girbaud’.
The compatibility of fashion and heritage
The philosophy of jeans purists is far removed from seasonally changing trends. And even the jeans industry, which reinvents itself every season, doesn’t openly classify itself as part of the fashion world. A fact explained by the restrictions of the complex manufacturing process. In the male-dominated areas of the clothing industry, such as in sports for example, it is well-known that winning over the women’s segment is irrevocably linked to a higher degree of fashion. This is why traditional jeans brands such as Lee have decided to pursue a strategy that covers both ends of the spectrum: on one hand, the authentic segment is covered with new versions of originals, and on the other, the fashion segment is served with a design collaboration with Vivienne Westwood.
Jeans fashion: Anything goes
There is a relatively large amount of creative leeway in fashionable denim interpretations. The limits are set by the current trends. At present, all cuts are possible: straight-leg or baggy legs, cuffs, ... yes, even the once uncool creases. Looks from the 1970s and 80s are being cited. In Lee Anglomania by Westwood, jeans for example are painted with gold, decorated with batik work, patched, ripped, cut - and not always in blue, but also in red and yellow. With punk-type elements such as bondage and zippers, the Queen of Punk quotes her own history and identity.
Personalising the cut
At Gebrüder Stitch, the jeans label founded in Vienna in 2010, they distance themselves from the word designer. The idea is to allow this piece of clothing, which is perhaps the most often-worn piece in the world, to still be individualistic and personal - by custom tailoring it. At the same time, the focus is on production that is as local and sustainable as possible. "What people simply call design", explains Moriz Piffl, one member of Gebrüder Stitch, "is a customer-oriented process that can become a communicative challenge, because not everyone has the same talent for abstraction".
For the Gebrüder Stitch, it was clear from the beginning that they weren’t alone on the market. It was also clear to them that they couldn’t have been alone in their search for the right jeans. But the real stimulus was their fascination with this icon of the consumer industry. As Plato’s theory of beauty says, it was love inflamed by a glimpse of the beautiful...
Hildegard Suntinger
