I chose this piece because the exhibition it was originally featured in examined the role of Denim in fashion history. Denim is a hugely significant fabric that has become ingrained in culture. Firstly, denim is a workwear fabric. This connotation has played a significant role in american fashion as it became representational of the “american spirit” that originally stems from a puritan work ethic. Americans saw denim as a fabric that represented this work ethic and resilience in struggle, especially during the second world war. Post-war in the United States, the focus of clothing became more on leisure. With the fashion industry in Paris ravaged by the war, American designers chose to stop copying french fashion and instead focus on defining an American style of clothing. Designers such as Claire McCardell took it upon themselves to define american fashion, and denim was a huge part of that. Since then, denim has been they staple of american style. This is evident in the media we’ve seen since then. We see denim traced through the 60’s in western movies, the 70’s and 80’s in the New York punk scene, the 90’s with brands such as Calvin Klein flooding the denim market, and the 2000’s with denim even hitting the red carpet (see Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in 2001). In other parts of the world denim made an impact as well. The Italian Futurist artist Thayaht designed his famous “TuTa” garment which was meant to be a versatile piece of workwear in conjunction to the Futurist ideas of fashion laid out by Filippo Tommasi Marinetti in his Futurist Manifesto. More contemporary designers have used Denim in different ways such as Alexander McQueen’s denim edwardian-style dress from Autumn/Winter 2000-01 which was smeared in red mud as a reflection on european colonialism in Africa. Denim overall is a hugely versatile and significant fabric that’s sometimes pretentiously overlooked because of it’s history in workwear.
