22 ms·
How jeans conquered the world (2012)
- jeffbarr 9y agoBack when I was a kid (born in 1960), jeans were called dungarees and you could wear them after school but not at school. This was in the northeastern part of the US, in a middle-class, public school environment. It was definitely not acceptable to wear jeans to a professional job until much later. In fact, I had to wear a tie at some of my first jobs as a developer.
- Analemma_ 9y agoA far as male pants/trousers go, your choices are basically jeans, corduroys, or khakis (chinos). Corduroys are uncomfortably warm, IME, and of the remaining two jeans are a clear winner for convenience: they don't need to be ironed (chinos look terrible as soon as they get even slightly wrinkled, jeans do not), and they better conceal small spills and stains. Not much more to it than that, for me.
- gaius 9y agoCombats. Cheap, comfortable, hardwearing, lots of pockets, dry quickly.
- CodeCube 9y agoAlso, surprisingly good at birth control!
- SBCRec 9y agoAgreed. My favourite thing about jeans are the lack of care they require, and their ability to hide stains!
- baus 9y agoDepending on your line of work, wool trousers are daily wear
- Analemma_ 9y agoGood point. But I'm a West Coast software engineer specifically to avoid that ;)
- baus 9y agoJust saying, your list of options there is pretty limited. You could also do something like these duck cotton jeans: https://www.ironheart.co.uk/bottoms/ih-666d.html https://www.ironheart.co.uk/bottoms/ih-666d.html
- balabaster 9y agoHuh, these look like they might actually stand up around the farm. Which is something I can never seem to get "city" jeans to do. Normally you have to trade off how often you have to replace them with how much they cost. For me, Levis red tabs (when found at Costco) are still pretty much right at the price point where the frequency of replacement works out the best value for money. Of course, like everything, it depends on what you're using them for - for city life, your $200 fashion jeans will last much longer than they do on the farm where they're done in 10 minutes. With the amount of time they last, the idea of spending hundreds of dollars on a pair of jeans that will be destroyed quickly just makes me cringe.
- macintux 9y agoI've settled on black jeans and black tennis shoes for my usual outfit. Makes wearing bright shirts easy, maintenance is trivial, still looks nice enough to wear on stage if I'm giving a presentation at a conference.
- amelius 9y agoYes, choice is very limited. Yet ... still when I need to find a pair of trousers, it can take me half a day of shopping. Online shopping is no good either, because I can't just write "low waist boot cut jeans, size 32/34" in any search engine. Even Amazon can't grok it. Seriously, somebody should fill that market gap.
- thomasfrank09 9y agoThose are pretty much what I wear (except straight leg instead of boot cut), and the best I've found so far are at Buckle. All the Levi's I tried seemed weirdly high-waisted, and stuff at other stores didn't fit so well either.
- Nav_Panel 9y ago> All the Levi's I tried seemed weirdly high-waisted This is surprising to me. Most contemporary Levi's I've tried seem quite low-waisted, so I'm forced to buy vintage for a more traditional high-waisted fit.
- iamacynic 9y agowhen you find a pair you like, buy as many as you can.
- coldtea 9y ago>A far as male pants/trousers go, your choices are basically jeans, corduroys, or khakis (chinos) Why, what happened to cotton lycra, herringbone, linen, traditional business suit trousers etc?
- anigbrowl 9y agoIt's interesting but sad that you're being so heavily downvoted for suggesting options outside the subcultural norm. When I was a young hacker coming to work in jeans was frowned upon and I had to put up with a lot of hassle for looking too casual. I've been surprised and disappointed to see the emergence of 'casual conformism' which encourages comfort but retains hostility to anything too different from the common tribal signifiers.
- chrisseaton 9y agoRight - west-coast tech companies have a dress code as strict as old fashioned companies - it just has different things on the list. In reality, no work place or social event has no dress code. We've just made it even harder by not having names for any of it. When I worked in a very traditional industry the dress code was always clear - semi-formal, informal, planter's, etc all had clear specific meanings and you could not make a mistake. When I go to a Google office, or a fashionable wedding they say 'wear whatever you are comfortable in' but if I wore a suit to Google or jeans to the wedding I'd be doing it wrong, so it's not honest.
- lostlogin 9y agoLycra in the workplace needs to stop.
- coldtea 9y agoWas speaking of lycra blends (with cotton, wool etc) for pants (were lycra is minimum just to give them elasticity), but sure, why not lycra itself too...
- santaclaus 9y agoI used to have a coworker who would weather leather pants to the office. YMMV.
- anigbrowl 9y agoPossibly me :)
- character0 9y agoI wash my jeans every 6-12 months, with occasional febreezing after I wear them. This is way more convenient than having to wash and iron my other pants. My other alternative are my Outlier pants https://outlier.nyc/ https://outlier.nyc/
- pitaj 9y agoDo you never sweat? Are the jeans antimicrobial or something?
- djtriptych 9y agoI've done basically the same thing. Definitely passes the sniff test - somehow there's not much of a difference. Not sure if oil from the skin ends up becoming a antimicrobial agent over time?
- ashark 9y agoFWIW mine need a wash after ~4-6 wearings or they smell. I haven't tried the vodka-spritzing trick I've read about, though, which may let them go longer. How they're stored probably affects it some. I have better results hanging them up rather than letting them sit on the floor, even if I'm just going to put them back on the next morning.
- int_19h 9y agoOnce you stop caring about appearances and go mainly for comfort, the "tactical" clothing (of a more lightweight variety, usually marketed as "duty" for security guards etc) becomes a surprisingly good choice. You get durable cotton/polyester or cotton/nylon blends, plenty of pockets that are actually designed to hold useful things in a comfortable way (like a phone pocket that can fit a Nexus 6P), generous cuts that do not constrict your movement or feel tight when you sit down, often with an elastic waistband that's not noticeable on the outside.
- baus 9y agoJapan is at the pinnacle of denim these days (although the US is catching up again). If you want to go off the deep end, take a look at SF based Self Edge [http://www.selfedge.com http://www.selfedge.com] or NY based Blue in Green [https://blueingreensoho.com/ https://blueingreensoho.com/]
- santaclaus 9y agoThose are some Russ Hanneman jeans
- huac 9y agoBlue Owl in Seattle is good too. These denim stores are mostly focused on raw denim, which is generally a much higher quality garment than available normally.
- nightski 9y agoThe quality difference would have to be substantial. I bring in a very high income for my area, and the thought of spending $300-$400 on a single pair of jeans is pretty out there. An $80 pair of jeans, which will often be on sale for $40-$50 will last me for 2-3 years and are of average quality. It seems to me like one would have to justify these jeans on the fashion/novelty aspect, and not quality/value as it just isn't there imho.
- baus 9y agoIf you take a pair of unwashed 501s and compare them to a pair of unwashed Iron Heart denim, you will see that the quality difference is substantial. Whether that matters is something you have to decide for yourself Since I wear denim almost everyday, the quality difference and the attention to detail matters to me. It reminds me that attention to detail matters in my own work I don't understand why engineers tend to care so little about the quality of their clothes
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- syphilis2 9y agoIt's surprisingly difficult to find a pair of jeans that I really like, and I've taken to altering my own to make up for the shortcomings. Nearly all have reduced the number of belt loops to 5, so I always add 2 more in the back on either side. I've started seeing really short zippers, which is unfixable and best to avoid. I've noticed a lot of ill fitting jeans bunch around the crotch or suffer from being a "cheap hotel". Also unfixable. Most are not lined inside around the waist and pockets. Sometimes the pocket hole is cut too high, making it awkward to put your hand in the pocket. Or worse, theres not enough give on the pocket to fit your hand in. Buttons and buttonholes don't always match well, especially on a button fly. I think it's easier to enlarge the holes, but sometimes the buttons can be oddly small. And of course measurements are unreliable, but that's true of all clothes. These are nitpicky things, but I notice them all the time at all price ranges. I expect they're decisions made out of carelessness, or to save costs, or because that was the intend result. Cynically, I believe carelessness is the most common cause.
- blhack 9y agoHave you seen: http://www.makeyourownjeans.com/ http://www.makeyourownjeans.com/ I've been meaning to order from them for a while, and have heard really good things about them.
- Kalium 9y agoI would suggest a modicum of caution. That price point is impressively competitive with Levi's while promising extensive customization. That's a potential warning sign. You might be better served looking at http://companiondenim.com/ http://companiondenim.com/
- dualogy 9y agoOr maybe Levi's is just "comparatively overpriced" to pay for the brand/image, their extensive advertising and their world-wide dealer/distro network, whereas the other you pay for a website and .. the customization? Who knows, two ways of looking at such things =)
- digi_owl 9y agoAns as any such symbol, marketing departments soon learned how to de-fang and package them for easy consumption.
- coldtea 9y agoNot that there were any big fangs to begin with. This isn't a culture, like punk or whatever, it is just a garment.
- anigbrowl 9y agoI disagree, jeans had significant cultural significance. As well as being associated with The West and the gold rush in particular, jeans were a strong signifier of working-class origins for a good while, and I bet if I were to show you a bunch of different jean logos you'd easily distinguish between those that are sold for fashion and those that are 'work wear'.
- anigbrowl 9y agoI stopped wearing them 2 years ago and don't miss them at all. Of course I still have some and will put them on sometimes when its practical, but modern denim just doesn't seem to be as hard wearing as it used to be, and I'm also sick of the weight and poor fit. I was especially annoyed a few years ago to find my favorite brand had slightly shortened the zipper, thus eliminating the whole benefit of being able to pee standing up because it was difficult to get my hand inside the smaller opening and uncomfortable to have it pinching me while I use the toilet. I'm sure the small savings on shorter zippers add up in the corporate accounts, but why would you make it more difficult for half the population to do something they need to do multiple times a day? They do the same sort of things with women's jeans by making the pockets too small to fit anything into (not to mention all the problems of getting a good fit since women's body shapes seem to vary more than men's). Economically jeans are an interesting example of commodity fetishism systematically making the product worse, as the emphasis shifts to fashionable display over comfort and functionality, and eventually the latter begins to be sacrificed in pursuit of the former. The oddest example I've seen of this was a UK startup that proposed to give people free jeans for 6 months or a year so that they'd wear them in and then ship them back for sale at a high price to fashionistas who wanted an authentically distressed look rather than one inflicted with a power tool at the jean factory. In other words, people will pay money to look poorer than they actually are.
- ghaff 9y agoI must be in a tiny minority in that I don't even own a pair of jeans. I wear khakis/chinos mostly, don't really care if they look a bit lived in sometimes (though some hold their shape better than others), and turn them into work pants when they start getting a bit frayed.
- ashark 9y ago> I was especially annoyed a few years ago to find my favorite brand had slightly shortened the zipper, thus eliminating the whole benefit of being able to pee standing up because it was difficult to get my hand inside the smaller opening and uncomfortable to have it pinching me while I use the toilet. Button fly is the only way to fly. Started as a skeptic, now a total convert.
- jakub_g 9y agoI must be a weird one, but while I used to like jeans, I stopped wearing them a few years ago. I only wear cotton pants those days. Every time I wear jeans, I'd feel itching very soon, particularly when it's hot, or when I wear the same pants two days in a row. I'm not sure if either I didn't notice this before, or did I change, or the production process of the jeanswear has changed.
- protomyth 9y agoI don't think its weird. I went from jeans to khakis and now I'm back to jeans. I do think the production process changed and newer jeans seem cheaper and itchy. Weirdly, when I went back to jeans I switched from Levis to Wranglers and some of those seem decent and some really suck.
- remir 9y agoYou should try denim with elastane. I bought a cheap pair from Old Navy and they're really comfortable, almost like wearing sweat pants.
- icc97 9y agoWhen 90% of the people around you are all wearing some shade of blue jeans, its a bit the same as everybody driving around in cars in some shade of grey (which they do at least in Belgium). That is, it's just really boring. Colour is one of the few things we've got to express ourselves, so it's a shame we don't use it more.
- specializeded 9y agoThat does sound boring... I see black jeans, all shades of blue jeans, white jeans and gray jeans on a v regular basis. High waisted, cut off, slim, baggy, "jorts" & their modern, slimmer variants etc A few years ago there were even lots of very loud turquoise, red and yellow ones around for a time, and honestly I think we're all a little glad that's ended :)
- icc97 9y agoblack, gray, white + shades of blue That's basically what I was moaning about. It's just BW monochrome + blue monochrome. Bring on the turquoise and fuchsia I say!
- specializeded 9y agoOh man, LA high schools circa 2009 would have loved you!
- dualogy 9y ago> Colour is one of the few things we've got to express ourselves Oh people find all other sorts of mildly yawnworthy ways "to express themselves", from oddly-placed piercings to full-face tattoos to half-baldshaved-half-manbun hairdos to oh-so-snowflake band t-shirts to rainbow-colored socks... among all the noise and clutter, "more colorful pants" wouldn't particularly stand out to me as expressive, whereas by now an unadulterated unmutilated well-nourished clear-eyed non-screen-zombified come-as-you-are face, nowadays, would. In fact, the blander and minimal the clothes and peripherals, the more one's face and head will stand out on its own! That's today's ultimate self-expression, allowing your natural self to shine through in full glory absent all the countless "customization options" people go through to carve out their "unique" avatars =)
- muninn_ 9y agoI'll never go back from Naked and Famous raw denim. Great customer service, too.
- silviogutierrez 9y agoOn jeans as an aesthetic choice, I have no strong opinion. Like everything else, they can look good or bad depending on fit/color/etc. But jeans for comfort? Maybe I'm the only one, but I find pants infinitely more comfortable. Even wool dress pants. And in the summer, jeans barely breath at all.
- ashark 9y agoI felt that way as a kid (wait, can I please just wear my "dress clothes" all the time? These jeans suck!) through my early 20s, but I'm back on jeans now and they're not uncomfortable. Might be a body shape thing (that certainly changed—I got much skinnier) or maybe a body type/brand mismatch; I know I had the cheapest thing readily available as a kid—usually Lee or Wrangler—and now I wear mid-range ordinary Levis, not their cheaper department-store targeted sub-labels.
- remir 9y agoJeans with a percentage of elastane are really comfortable.
- jscipione 9y agoThis is yet another example of how America, especially the American West has transformed the culture of people world-wide.
- eddof13 9y agoFor all the guys (and gals) out there, let me introduce you to the Diesel JoggJeans. They look like jeans, coming in various washes, cuts and styles, but they are sweatpants. May you never go back.
- nabaraz 9y agoOr Uniqlo jogger jeans. https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/jeans/joggers https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/jeans/joggers
- mikestew 9y agoAnd when global warming kicks in hard, the ice caps melt, and the coastal cities flood, the cuffs of your pants won't get wet! At least according to the pictures on the product site. Is it no longer fashionable for your cuffs to reach your shoes? And, personally, as one who wears 501s at every opportunity, I wouldn't be caught dead in those things outside my house. But that's just personal taste.
- killcapitalists 9y agoJeans with elastic bands? http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/mom-jeans/3505924?snl=1 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/mom-jeans/35059...
- ilamont 9y agoThe thing that bothers me about buying jeans in the U.S. is the near-universal product segmentation based on 2-inch intervals for waist and inseam (32", 34", 36", etc.). It's rare to find jeans with a 33-, 35-, or 37-inch waist, or a 31" inseam. Because my measurements don't fit what's available in the stores, I often restock when traveling overseas.
- garethsprice 9y agoFind a good local tailor, they can fix inseam/waist perfectly for $20 or so.
- dgudkov 9y agoMore expensive brands typically have 1-inch intervals, so finding 31- or 33-inch waist isn't a problem.
- eikenberry 9y agoI used to wear jeans 100% of the time. Then I had kids and as they grew up they hated jeans, said they were uncomfortable, that their school uniforms (cotton) pants were more comfortable. After having trouble finding good jeans I decided to give pants a try and haven't looked back. They are so much more comfortable than jeans and wear better than the jeans I was getting, plus they look nicer in a professional environment. I just got rid of my last pair of jeans a few months ago and don't plan on buying them again.
- dgudkov 9y agoI wonder if the same will be written about yoga pants. They're everywhere nowadays. Some women even wear them for work (that is not related to yoga).