Things Old and New

Old Navy? Who wants to wear Old Navy? I don't even want to wear new Navy! I didn't want to wear the 13 button fly, laced back bell bottoms I was issued when I did my stint in "Uncle Sam's" seafarers. They weren't denim! We called the uniform "Cracker Jacks" or "13 reasons to say No!" I still like the work utility denims which were our every-day work wear though. Jeans! Historically the most popular item of clothing ever made! Denim jeans got their name from the indigo dyed French fabric "serge de Nimes" but can be traced back two thousand years further as un-dyed canvas-weave sailors work wear which were dragged in nets behind the ships to be washed by the currents and the tide. The birth of modern jeans came during the California gold rush circa 1850 when German immigrant Levi Strauss came West to expand the Strauss brothers mercantile selling supplies to the miners. Among the supplies he brought bolts of woven hemp canvas to be used as tents and shelter. The struggling miners told him "Forget about tents! We can build our own shelter! What we need are sturdy work pants that can stand up to the rough work-load and not shred to pieces like the cotton fabric of the day!" So the first Levis were canvas overalls made out of hemp fiber! Almost ironic. The famed brass rivet points which help sustain the jeans durability were the invention of Jacob David who became partners with Levis Strauss when the patent was issued in 1873 for the riveted denim "waist overalls" we know and love. Yves St. Laurent expressed his envy of the fashion staple. " I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans. The most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed, non-chalant. They have expression, modesty, sex-appeal, simplicity, all I hope for in my clothes!" The newest trend I have seen are "Brazilian bikini jeans" which are like a bikini bottom with leg flares sewn to the straddle. Now that's a design I wish I had come up with! As a matter of fact, I almost did! In 1968 (think "flower power", o.k.) I came up with a design for bikini leggings. These were pant-legs worn above the knees below the matching bikini bottom. My design, well ahead of it's time did not catch on. Check out the bikini jeans. Will they catch on? Fashion design is pretty much limited to the classic forms. Anything deviatiing from the classic designs are an aberration and relegate themselves to looking like something from the Jetsons cartoon closet! There are only so many ways to drape men or women with the same combination of two arms and two legs. Still we return to the casuallness and the dressiness of jeans and all of their varieties.They can accentuate the possitive and hide the negative attributes of any body shape. Ankle jeans, baggy jeans, bell bottoms, flare leg, boot cut, boy cut, capris, carpenter jeans, high waist jeans, loose jeans, low rise, hip hugger, Phat pants, skinny jeans, straight-leg jeans, "jorts" shorts and yes, Bikini jeans and where are my drawings? Maybe the time for bikini chaps has come!