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Jeans

10/27/2018

20 Comments

 
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I don’t wear jeans anymore.    
 
This realization hit the other day while sorting laundry.    
 
There were sweatshirts and tees that I wear for tops, as well as half a dozen pairs of solid color leggings.  Plus, there was a pile of my new favorite pants—patterned drawstring pajamas just right for yoga. Khakis, one black and the other olive green, already hung in the closet.    
 
But there wasn’t any denim. 
 
Those who didn’t come of age in the 1960s probably can’t know how odd it is to not own a single pair of jeans.
 
I was a teenager in the middle and latter part of that decade, and almost until its end, girls could wear only dresses and skirts at school.  But in ninth grade, the dress code loosened: we were allowed pants on Fridays.  Still, jeans weren’t in the mix—they were considered low brow and not appropriate student apparel.     
 
That changed in just a couple of years.
 
A photo in my high school yearbook for my junior year has a class president striding toward the camera in bell bottom jeans and a denim work shirt.  I got my first grown-up jeans around the same time, basic Levi's that were the darkest of indigo, retrieved from a neat stack at a discount department store.  Wearing them in class, they made me seem way cooler than I was, and somehow, officially part of a new generation determined to bend tradition.     
 
I’m sure I had more than a few pairs of jeans while clowning on the road and in college, first at UCLA and then San Jose State, but mostly I remember the long jeans skirt bought at a flea market in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco.  It boasted a triangle cutaway in front with a Technicolor cartoon drawing of Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs from the classic Disney movie.  I loved that skirt.       
 
My other friends mostly wore plain jeans; they were cheap and lasted for years.  I’m sure that none of us knew this college uniform was invented neither for fashion nor protest.  Instead, jeans were designed for purely utilitarian purposes:  California gold rush miners in 1850 needed the sturdiest of pants that could withstand hard work, ground-in dirt and very little chance of tearing.  Thus, denim trousers were born.      
 
But by the time I graduated from college, in 1979, jeans were high fashion.   
 
I’d moved to New York City that year to be a magazine writer, and women there wore the wildly popular Jordache brand, made of thinner fabric than my first jeans, and costing an outrageous $50 per pair. 
 
Started by the four Naccache brothers in Manhattan a year earlier, these siblings had taken notice of the European denim market, where jeans were worn not for work, but for fashion. The brothers’ timing was on target: at the height of Jordache’s success, during the 1980s, the company was raking in an annual $300 million in wholesale income.    
 
But what I recall most about my jeans then was the absolute necessity of having perfect straight creases down the middle—two in front and two in back. 
 
My best friend Jeanette taught me how, using large sheets of damp newspaper and a hot iron.  I did this so often that my ironing board was on permanent display in my Brooklyn apartment.
 
The decades passed, which included returning to California and finding a career in Hollywood—writer for a public relations outfit whose biggest client was the Cannes Film Festival; reporting for the West Coast bureau of a British movie trade publication, and becoming a producer for a variety of reality television shows about ghosts, unsolved murders and UFOs.  I worked long hours at all of these jobs, and found myself wearing jeans less and less.
 
Perhaps this was because I was growing more contented in my skin, and to that end, found that comfort was now the main dictate for my clothing choices.  I was especially weary of those jeans that saw me sucking in my stomach and holding my breath to get them on.  Wearing airy drawstring pants and loose skirts was just easier. 
 
Last year, the end finally arrived.
 
I donated the one pair of jeans in my closet—which I hadn’t put on in more than five years—to a thrift store. 
 
These days, the closest I come to wearing denim are jeggings, which hug my body in all the right places, but are also comfy and stretchy.    
 
One should never say never.  But I’m happy to report that the denim train has departed from this Girl Clown station—and most likely, isn’t going to return.   
 
Do you remember your first pair of jeans?  
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20 Comments
Larry Grant
10/27/2018 07:11:55 pm

Being a boy who grew up in rural Ohio I was always in jeans except in school. Uniforms were school attire.

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Hilary A Grant
10/27/2018 07:37:55 pm

Yes, you were a Nature Boy! But I bet your jeans got a lot of wear...hunting, riding a horse and of course, harvesting apples! :) xo

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Ron Jarvis
10/27/2018 07:36:33 pm

I cannot let go of my jeans. No matter how bad they make me look. Flattering they are not. lol

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Hilary A Grant
10/27/2018 07:48:02 pm

Yeah, I think I'm in the minority about this... but give me my leggings and pajama pants **any** day! :)

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leslie spoon
10/27/2018 08:32:24 pm

I stopped wearing jeans about 15 yrs ago. I never found them comfortable. I like leggings now.

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Hilary A Grant
10/27/2018 08:41:01 pm

Great--one for my side! I had jeans that were more comfortable than other jeans, but yup, none that were super comfy, EVER.

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Andrea Peck
10/27/2018 09:25:57 pm

Oh, wow! What a great topic---I love wearing jeans, so much so, that when I worked ''a real job'' I quickly moved from wearing jeans only on Friday, to include, jeans on Wednesday and Thursday. I think my last year of work, I dressed 'dressy' on Mondays and said to heck with it the rest of the week, lol. I love the idea of feeling comfortable in leggings, better yet, pajamas sounds like the ultimate goal!

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Hilary A Grant
10/27/2018 09:39:44 pm

Awww, thanks! Feel free to SHARE this blog on FB if you'd like!
Leggings are soooo much more comfortable--and drawstring pajama pants are even better. Sadly, you can't wear the latter to an office... although, WAIT! Hugh Hefner ran his Playboy empire in silk pajamas. So, what do I know? :)

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Mary Catt
10/28/2018 05:40:19 am

This post SO resonates! I was in a gray uniform until ninth grade. I was a fashion-oppressed middle schooler!

In eighth grade, I badgered my mother into letting me get a pair of jeans . They had silver studs up and down the legs and I was bursting with delight until they went out of style a year later.

Interestingly, studs. came back in 2017, 46 years after my fleeting flirtation with pop style..

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Hilary A Grant
10/28/2018 10:30:00 am

Well, I was an awkward middle schooler in my own way (except for maybe Brooke Shields, aren't we all?), so I don't think my choice in fashion was anything to write home about, even though there were no uniforms at the public schools I attended. Re: style, yeah--if we wait long enough, the trends always return! : )

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Jim Nolt
10/28/2018 08:39:26 am

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania (just east of Larry's Ohio) and I too wore jeans when I was young. But we called them overalls then, and we only wore them at home. Before going into town (or anywhere else for that matter) I had to change into something "more presentable." I don't recall ever wearing jeans to school... neither elementary nor high school. Since I retired in 2009, however, jeans are my first fashion choice. I wear them everyday, and only swap them out to attend funerals and such. They are comfortable and durable.

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Hilary A Grant
10/28/2018 10:17:31 am

You feel the same way about your jeans today as I feel about my drawstring pajama pants. Larry wear jeans at home as well. For school, it's Dockers. : )

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Jim Nolt
10/28/2018 09:02:10 am

Hilary... just remembered a couple more things. Those "overalls" had to be turned up at the bottom to form a cuff. To be like all the other guys, that was a must! But it was a nuisance when I mowed the lawn because that cuff also acted as a grass catcher that had to be emptied out after the mowing the down. That also reminded me that shirt sleeves needed to be turned up also. After all, one had to look just right even on the farm.

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Hilary A Grant
10/28/2018 10:25:47 am

OH MY... so even boys working on the farm had to follow fashion dictates. Too funny! Larry's family had a small apple orchard (not full household income, but it helped) and I'll have to ask him if he did the cuff thing. BTW, overalls were big when I was in high school in the early '70s... and I also had a white pair that I dyed pink for Clown College in' 74. I still have my Clown College ID card and that's what I'm wearing in the picture! They were from Sears (the only store you could find them at) and I cut them off so they were a little bit above the knee. VERY durable and perfect for acrobatics and learning other stunts. I also had another pair that I wore in the circus; I left that one white, but I decorated it with rhinestones and flower appliques. You couldn't buy overalls that were fashionable and made for women--but that changed by the end of the '70s when clothing manufacturers saw a market for them.

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Rebecca R Galloway
10/29/2018 10:18:03 am

You've earned the right to be comfy!

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Hilary A Grant
10/29/2018 07:32:13 pm

LOL! And, I couldn't agree more. : )

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Susan Jordan
11/19/2018 09:59:42 am

I think men still wear jeans for the simple reason that men's jeans are designed for comfort, not fashion. (Although men's "skinny jeans" of today don't look that comfortable!) I don't remember my first pair because I was a young child when I got them in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I do remember the designer-jeans craze when I was a teenager and 20-something. It was preferable to wear your jeans with an "alligator" polo shirt by Izod back then, followed quickly by Ralph Lauren polos. I could never wear Jordache because of my frame and shape, but I did have at least one pair each of nice-fitting Calvin Kleins and Chemin de Fers. Ultimately, I settled into Lee jeans, which were best for my shape. But I haven't worn my jeans in a few years now, mainly because...I don't fit into them anymore! But I'll always like a comfy pair of jeans.

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Hilary A Grant
11/19/2018 10:34:32 am

My rear end and thighs are big, but I'm small waisted. So, Levis stopped working for me a long time ago, and the cut of Gloria Vanderbilt never worked. But what ended up working for me, for years, was the Lee brand, too, usually w/ a bit of stretch built in. I also had a pair of Land's End that I loved. Now, it's jeggings.... I especially love the Vera Wang label.

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Kerri Ann Fisher
12/27/2018 05:03:57 pm

I remember colorful jeans - were they called Jordache?

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Hilary A Grant
12/27/2018 09:53:02 pm

I don't think so. I remember Jordache (an ad is pictured above) mostly being blue, and maybe some folks had black ones. Gloria Vanderbilt made different colored jeans, though; hers had the swan embroidered on the front pocket. Maybe that's the brand you're thinking of?

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    Hilary Roberts Grant

    Journalist, editor, filmmaker, foodie--and a clown! 
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