Denim Community-REDUX
From Mod Mania
DENIM COMMUNITY-REDUX
American slaves wearing denim
What is Denim?
Cotton and blue indigo dye
Denim is a fabric that we use to make a pair of jeans. In the early 16th century, denim was made of cotton and wool1, but after the Levi Straus Company born, denim was made of cotton only. The blue color of blue denim is from the indigo plant. Basically the blue denim is formed from the cotton that colored with indigo dye.
There are 2 basic types of jeans we have known today. The first one is the raw or dry jean. They are basically an unwashed pair of jeans, so when we are wearing raw jeans it will age naturally depending on our daily activity. The second one is washed jeans, these jeans are already washed in the factory, and usually they already have worn out look.
Popular jeans in the denim community are selvage denims. The term selvage comes from “self edge” which is made on old style shuttle looms. This process means that the weft or cross stitch of the denim is one continuous piece. The process of shuttle loom weaving is much slower than modern techniques such as jacquard looms where the weft is passed through the warp at a rate that the human eye can’t see. Selvage denim is also more expensive because you use the side of the roll of denim, which can be up to 60 inches wide, to make legs, which display the selvage stripe down the leg. This means that you are using approximately 80”x60” of denim to produce each pair of jeans. The other denim can be used for other jeans but cannot have the selvage stripe desired by many of the denim community.
selvage denim
History of Denim
The history of denim or jeans began in 16th century when some craftsman in Turkey made the first pair of jeans. The jeans were used to be sailor pants. In fact Columbus the great sailor from Italy was used denim for his sails over a hundred of years.
Levi Strauss began the first mass-produce jeans. He was supplying jeans and clothes for the mineworkers in California. Levi Strauss was invented a lot of features and details of jeans. For example, they invented to use metal rivets to hold the pockets and the jeans together. It was a great solution due to complain from the mineworkers who always found that the pockets were easy to rip off.
19th century might be the golden century of jeans. Jeans were very popular and many jeans manufacturers were born. In 1900s Jeans were not just used as work wear, but also as daily clothes. In 1950s Jeans were also become the fashion icon. One of the factors was the development of film industry, where there were a lot of Hollywood movies featured the actors or actresses wearing jeans. In 1900s the variety of new jeans cut or silhouette was invented, such as skinny, relaxed fit, slim fit, boot cut, etc.
Denim is intrinsically rooted in American culture, although it was created in another part of the world. Denim is seen as traditional American work wear, although now a fashion icon, it is the Americanization of the world, which has lead to denim as a chief staple in the category of pants. Slaves and miners wore denim, so it was traditionally seen as a lower class item. Marlon Brando and James Dean wore denim in films such as “The Wild Bunch” and “Rebel Without a Cause”. These personas in the film were from the lower and struggling middle classes. These stars became the fashion, and as the world became more “Americanized” the work wear trend spread to other areas of the world. This is shown, as Japan is the most respected denim maker in the world, although most denim is made in China and considered poor quality in the denim community. American denim mills have closed and Japan has embraced the production of the “old style” denim. Brands such as Imperial (Australian), Levis vintage work wear (high end levis), Sugar Cane and Samurai all use Japanese denim. Japan has almost wholly adopted the American work wear style. Neighborhood is such an example, where almost all of their fashion is based on American work wear or technical apparel.
The hype of jeans in 20th century is still continuing. There are more brands that offers different kind of jeans, whether the details, cuts, colors, and fabrics differ.
Denim Community
As mentioned above about the jeans, the hype of jeans is still going until now. These days denim lovers are not just wear the jeans, they also gather together to make a community. The denim community basically is a group where there is a bunch of denim or jeans lovers gather together. They share experiences and knowledge about denim in the community. There are many denim communities that exist, such as Superdenim, Mynudies, Denimology, INDIGO (Indonesian Denim Group), Denim Heads, and many more. Most of them are online communities.
The membership in a denim community is not restricted only for people who have a lot of experiences and knowledge about denim, or for people who own fancy jeans. Denim communities open for anyone, it could be for people who love denim but have not got one, people who have no idea about denim, and people who want to learn more about denim.
Denim community usually has some activities to maintain and tighten the relationship between one member and others. Gatherings, online forums, blogs, Facebook pages, and denim exhibitions are some of denim community’s activities. These activities are very important to keep the community alive. The denim community activities are not just all about denim and jeans, it could be social activity, such as helping poor and homeless people and collecting some money to help the victims of natural disasters.
The community seeks to distinguish itself from the common denim wearer. This is achieved by adding details which are attributed to quality. Selvage is the chief quality sought after by the denim community, preferably Japanese denim. Raw denim is another quality which is highly sought after, it allows the user to create their own pair of jeans, controlling the creases and the fades by the way they wear the denim, such as not wearing wallets or phones in pockets and not washing the denim for 6 months or more until their denim is broken in and only then will they wash their denim. Other details such as rivets, selvage on the coin and back pocket and clinch back are features which many in the denim community seek.
Gathering
Some of the denim communities hold gatherings, where the members can gather together to share their experience or knowledge about jeans and denim. Usually they meet in a meeting point such as café, restaurant, bar, etc. Then they could gather together to talk about jeans or anything else. Some of denim communities usually hold the gathering once a month or once a week.
Online forums
Online forums might be the most important activity in a denim community. Most of the denim communities were born from online forums, such as Superfuture, Kaskus, Styleforum, Mynudies, Hypebeast, etc.
In the online forums the denim community could have their own section or threads to discuss all about denim. The threads may discuss about different brands of jeans, new jeans, the evolution of jeans, and many more. Some of denim community such as INDIGO (Indonesian Denim Group) has their own website and online forum. The advantage of a denim community to have their own forum is to make the discussion about denim more specific. It also helps the denim community to run independently.
Some of denim communities also have their own page in other websites, such as facebook, blogspot, and twitter. These pages are very helpful to keep the communication within the community. It also helps the members to keep up to date to the latest news about denim.
The online community share their thoughts and opinions with each other. On fits, quality of denim, price, fades and things like how nice the fade on a pair of jeans is.
The dedication of some of the online community is shown on the forum hypebeast, where there are hundreds of pages dedicated to each brand. The pages are filled with pictures of fits and fades, discussions on size and the way they wear in such as stretch and shrink after washing.
Denim Exhibition
One of denim community in Indonesia named INDIGO (Indonesia Denim Group) has their own way to tighten the relationship within the community. One of the ways is to hold a denim exhibition. In this exhibition INDIGO shows a bunch of worn out jeans. They also open local brand stands and give opportunity to local brands to show and sell their jeans. The exhibition is very helpful, because the exhibition is open for public so anyone can come. It also supports the local brands, and encourages them to produce the best jeans for the local market.
Denim Contest
Another denim community’s activity that quiet popular recently is a denim contest. Denim contest basically is a competition between the community’s members. The rules is simple, all the participants have to wear an identical pair of raw jeans in a period of time. The winner will be the ones with the best natural fade. The participants also have to keep the progress of the jeans up by putting the progress photos in the online forums.
Conclusion
Denim is not only a fabric used to make jeans for many people. It is important to the denim community that they have a 14oz, raw, selvage denim. This can be based on their ambition to stand out above the average denim wearer, fit into the denim community who are proud of their knowledge of denim, wear a quality item that is going to last and also wear a part of history, with vintage features that show an appreciation for old techniques of production and craft.
References
“www.neighborhood.jp/main.php
www.selfedge.com/
www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/d_miller/mil-12
Denim Community, Evan Christian Tjhaij, 2010”
