HAMBURG (dpa) – In recent years, jeans have been in the fashion doghouse. They remained popular for casual wear, but were off the catwalks and unseen in glossy fashion magazines.
But that has changed. Suddenly jeans are an object of desire yet again, although not in the conventional style, like Levi’s 501s, which were considered trendy in the early 1990s.In the early years of the 21st century, two things are crucial if jeans are to be fashionable: cut and distressed, or manipulated, fabric.According to fashion experts, a funky, hip cut is a must. Among the styles currently en vogue are 1960s-era hipsters with bell bottoms that flare out starting at the knees, or sexy, tight “drainpipe” jeans, last seen in the 1980s.But high-tech manipulation of the robust indigo-dyed fabric is just as important. This can mean washing, bleaching or brushing to give the garment that lived-in look with faded areas on the legs or across the seat.Heiner Sefranek, head of German jeans label Mustang, spoke of an “explosion of innovation” in the manufacturing sector.At the same time, denim has resurfaced in the shows of designers like Dolce & Gabbana, Helmut Lang or Tom Ford, while pop diva Madonna has taken to wearing a cowgirl look.In the United States, Suzann Costas Freiwald has launched “Earl Jean” Jeans which have been snapped up by the beautiful and the well- to-do. In Germany, fashionable teenage girls are mad about “Miss Sixty” jeans.The denim boom even surprised insiders. Just a few years ago, demand for denim was so low that many textile manufacturers were forced to reduce their output. Now manufacturers are having trouble keeping up with demand.According to the German trade journal Textilwirtschaft, only 15 cloth manufacturers in Europe still produce denim. Some manufacturers actually got rid of their looms as denim seemed to have had its day.But firms that specialised in “distressing” brand-new pairs of jeans – long before they reach the customer – were also caught out. They are currently very much in demand.Washing and otherwise “ageing” brand-new jeans has long been common, but used to be something done at home, in the bathtub or washing machine.Today’s thirtysomethings can still remember buying jeans two sizes too big, shrinking them in the washer, and how it still took months of wearing them to “break in” a new pair. But this had its rewards: a pair of jeans that was unmistakeably yours, with individual creases, folds and faded patches.This “lived-in” look is crucial in the new wave of fashion jeans. They should look well-worn even before you ever try them on.“No one takes the time to break in a pair of jeans anymore. This is done industrially nowadays,” Sefranek explains.Antje Seipler of Textilwirtschaft, the trade journal, agrees. “Young people tend to go for the lived-in look.” In extreme cases, this meant a “ragged” look in which jeans actually are threadbare and have holes.Edwin Jeans have a whole catalogue of methods for distressing jeans, including mechanical and chemical processes. Stone-washing is the best known of these, a process in which the trousers are washed for hours in machines loaded with stones to make them looked worn.In a biotechnology variant, some manufacturers use genetically manipulated enzymes that attack the cellulose fibres to the same effect.Other companies take a sandblaster, sandpaper or brushes to denim to make them look “destroyed”. There is a litany of techniques: Jeans are scraped, painted, baked at high temperatures or bleached.Some processes are selective, centring on seams, pockets and the seat of the garment with the intention of revealing the white threads that are the warp, or foundation, of denim cloth.But given all this inventiveness, some processes are bound to backfire. Levi Strauss had to recall its “Glossy Finish” jeans in August as they were feared to emit dangerous fumes.
