Denim is in our jeans

In the Wild West, dying with your boots on was considered honourable. It was a manly death, often wrought by the piercing head of a bullet.

Years later, pop art icon, Andy Warhol wished for a similarly “masculine” departure, only that he wished to die in his pair of blue jeans.

His was a bohemian hankering with a throwback to the 1960s during the almost fetishistic reverence of jeans as a symbol of protest against conformity.

The vestiges of this is discernible to date in dissenters like the late Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson, who even during the early days of Virgin — when money was not in abundance as it is today — refused to wear a suit and tie to impress the starched collars in Coutts & Co., one of UK’s oldest banks, for a loan.

Instead, he strutted to the meeting in his pair of jeans, sporting a pony-tail, but still got the money.

Jeans, after all, was envisaged as a workman’s cloth by Levi Strauss, the man who made the first pair of blue jeans in May of 1873.

It was the apparel of choice for the 1870s Californian miners, fashioned for ruggedness and outdoor life, making it a staple of farmhands and rodeo types like the Marlboro Man, with calloused and tobacco-stained hands.

Things have now changed, especially after jeans took to the catwalk in the 1980s.

You can say that the fashion industry’s birth canal had just dilated in readiness for the birth of what has since become known as designer jeans.

Levi would be at a loss were he to step out of his grave now and see what has become of jeans — the words “chic” and “elegant” can even now be used in the same sentence with a pair of jeans!

I blame it on the French, whose hyperbolic sense of romance and sentimental attraction to food can even make the word “effeminate” sound like a compliment.

It turns out the word “jeans” is a derivative of bleu de Genes (the blue of Genoa), the denim fabric that Levi eventually ordered to improve on the quality and comfort of his Hemp-fashioned menswear, originated in Nimes in France and owes its name to the location that was simply called “denim” outside France.

As such, today denim is no longer the reserve of men; it is a permanent feature in all wardrobes and almost a constant in seasonal fashion trends.

Jeans pants are loved by women, who get into them one leg at time, wiggle and jump to settle into a tight fit.

The abrasive apparel is gone and jeans now contain some of the supplest skins in the world, even hotpants are not really provocative if they are not made of high-riding, frayed jeans.

This must be the democracy in fashion as envisaged by Giorgio Armani.

As a matter of fact, the best and premium denim now come from (of all the places) Japan, the land of delicate pallid beauty.

The most expensive jeans, Secret Circus, that goes for a staggering $1.3 million (Sh 116 million) is not even your regular brand as is the $250,000 (Sh22 million) luxury Dussault Apparel thrashed denim, that costs more than four times the $60,000 (Sh5 million) 1880s Levi Strauss & Co. 501.

At least the latter has no diamonds to bump up its cost.

Jeans may have weathered the storm of coarseness in the past, but the sartorial weather is different these days.

It has been embraced for its versatility and new-found sex appeal, particularly if paired with a white T-shirt.

Still however, that has not shielded it from a bad rap, not unlike that of governors threatening to go to the mat with a Pesa Mashinani campaign for more funds.

This has condemned denim as a default setting for lazy wear, for which most men are accused.

Remember the days of white sneakers, and polo shirts tucked into blue jeans?

Still, denim aficionados remain infatuated by jeans. Its central laid-back look is particularly appealing, even sliced bread does not come close as mankind’s most revolutionary invention.

No wonder, Yves Saint Laurent quipped almost regretfully, “I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity — all I hope for in my clothes.”

Jeans lovers are almost fanatical, like the current Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh, who admitted that he has not washed his favourite pair for over a year.

Even Tommy Hilfiger disclosed that he never washes his Levi’s, because “they’ll fall apart. I love them broken in.”

So, apparently, for those who have to “clean” their pairs of jeans, bathing in them or sticking them in the freezer should suffice.

Yes, really!

Legendary star Bing Crosby’s brush with hotel doormen perhaps illustrates just how deep the love for jeans goes.

Having been barred from a hotel because he was clad in a a pair of jeans, Levi’s came to the rescue by designing him a custom-made tuxedo with a big leather patch “notice to all hotel men” to allow the tuxedo into the finest of establishments.

That was then.

Today, Ralph Lauren is leading with more “refined” lines having just launched 2015 collections with hipster and Wall Street look lines.

It is hard to imagine pot-bellied corporate types at the Nairobi Securities Exchange donning denim suits.

But despite all its glory, jeans have not escaped the pitfall of horrible clothing.

Besides being the only wear that can sell ‘”torn, shredded and patched” pants for a premium, it is also perhaps the most abused outfit.

It may not take you even minutes on Nairobi’s streets before you bump into a gaggle of goofs in skinny jeans and probably slip-on denim shoes, shuffling through town with backpacks or milling at social events, in what passed as hip eons ago.

Sagging, the hip-hop inspired madness does not even need a mention.

I do not think that when Harry Winston, the American luxury jeweller, said “people will stare, make it worth their while,” meant we should be assaulted by the distressing vision of cheap imitation boxer brands from Nairobi’s Eastleigh area!

That elegance is a beauty that fades and very fast is given real meaning by women who parade in mom jeans, pajama jeans and overalls.

In the pretentious world we live in, it does not matter how good your personality is.

If it comes wrapped in a hideous pair of jeans and stretchy pieces with ridiculous names like ‘jegging,’ then the game is as good as lost for you, because at that rate, even a stiff faceless mannequin has more style.

Unless you are Kanye West, Serena Williams or one Annabel Onyango with the flair to even transform a tablecloth into sophisticated pocket square look, stay clear of the denim-on-denim look.

The world got enough of that gaucheness with the Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears 2001 America Music Awards disaster.

Men, unlike women, tend to be stuck in the smartness of fashion, while women can deploy their sense of style to turn even the drabbest of denim ensembles into zesty getup, like experimenting with colours like purple or yellow or even dandy prints.

I like it when I see a woman use her accessories as exclamations that live you in open-jawed in wonderment, like combining biker boots with denim or unleashing her sexy side with a jeans-high heel combo.

There is nothing as overpowering as a woman in heels — unless of course she is the type that cannot handle six inches and stumbles like newborn calf!