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Jeans
for all seasons
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Look around. Everyone’s
wearing them. What started as workman’s clothes in the 19th century
is today an essential item in every wardrobe, of the rich and the poor.
Jeans. Not just any jeans. Blue jeans. Hardcore Americana from the word
go. But is it really? Are the jeans that built America still American? American
soldiers wore them in the ’40s, James Dean wore them in the ’50s,
hippies wore them in the ’60s and ’70s, designers and models
wore them in the ’80s and by the time the 1990s came around, the whole
world was wearing them.
They talk of ‘Coca-Colonisation’ and when America invaded Afghanistan
in 2001, Muslim establishments across Mumbai banned Pepsi and Coke, quickly
replacing it with Sosyo and the like. But would it have occurred to anyone,
no matter how anti-American, to ban jeans? You burn the Stars and Stripes,
but no one’s going to burn their Levi’s.
Jeans by themselves may not be a symbol of America. Which self-respecting
middle class kid will wear local jeans? No, it has to be Levi’s. Levi
Strauss, that American institution since 1850; the world’s No. 1 clothing
manufacturer. Unless of course you choose to wear Armani.
Leo Mirani
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January
08, 2005
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