Women S Vintage Jeans: Timeless Chic

Submitted by: Rosie Williams

There s something about vintage jeans that brings out the geek in any fashion fanatic. The branding, the cut, the stitching, the colour, the stressing, the length well, this is about ten per cent of the features that determine a pair of jeans kudos and wearability. And if you think this is a male preserve, you ve really not been paying attention the market for women s vintage jeans is just as cut-throat and obsessive.

Women have been wearing jeans just as long as men have. They re inextricably linked with pioneering Americans thrusting westwards and eventually building upwards as the cities scaled new levels of showy affluence. As jeans grew from being a cheap, hard-wearing denim garment to a fashion item, they took this iconography with them, with names and straplines like Wrangler (literally a handler of horses and cattle the cowboy personified) and Lee ( The jeans that built America ). But while the menfolk were working the land and building the skyscrapers, the hardy women were doing their fair share of the manual labour raising families in often inhospitable climates. Somehow this image has remained timeless and almost aspirational; even chic fashion houses still sometimes revert to it when they re marketing their denims.

The success of jeans can all be traced back to the 1950s, though particularly fifties America. Memories and privations of war were beginning to fade and youngsters were growing up in an age of relative plenty, and were pushing the boundaries of what they could get away with in terms of music, art and fashion. Thanks to the era also hailing the explosion of mass media television, the looks of the day were captured for posterity and have become something of a template for measured rebellion ever since.

Young women were quick to take advantage of this change in attitudes. While we might associate 50s women s fashion with the enormous, structured dresses and a look of glammed-up domesticity, these days were limited, and this is partly due to the striding advance of the skin-tight denims jeans that are instantly recognisable, along with their sisters, the pencil skirts, as archetypically rock and roll.

More and more in our fashion magazines and on the streets, elements of the burlesque are becoming embedded in 2010s culture. The attraction of the tattoos, the jet-black or bleached-blonde hair worn high and the extravagant Parisian garb is not hard to see; it s a look that oozes power, rebellion and creativity while definitely remaining feminine. But it s a look that has great resonance in the genuine first-generation rock and rollers, and some authentic vintage jeans will be the part of any such wardrobe, even if they are never worn after sundown.

Best of all, it s a great time to be shopping for authentic jeans from the 50s and 60s. Mosey into any good vintage clothing store and the chances are you ll find some tailored examples that can be worn off the peg, allowing you to carry on your retro look without missing a beat. They represent easily the most glamorous phase of women s jeans history after that they became rather slovenly and workaday for a decade or two so grab them while they re hot.

About the Author: A pair of authentic

womens vintage jeans

can fetch a healthy price these and

vintage clothing

stores always reserve premium shelf space for these popular garments. Rosie explains the popularity and history of denim jeans and why women too are regular buyers.

Source:

isnare.com

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