At hand is one of those things makes very little sense to the average person. For anyone who has worn a pair of jeans day after day, consecutively for months or even years at a time, than you have without a doubt fielded numerous questions to curious people who want to know why you have the same pair of jeans on every single time they see you. The “raw denim” phenomenon has gotten slightly out of control in recent months, but the tradition of “breaking-in” a pair of jeans is largely a process that has been undergone since the very inception of the jean itself. In a simpler time, before designers, and diamond studded arcs flared across pack pockets of blue jeans, the pants were intended for the working class, and they wore them until the jeans themselves refused to be worn any longer.Well in continuance of that tradition I have been wearing a pair of Levi 514 jeans for a good deal longer than I care to remember. Not necessarily because I want to follow in the steps of workmen who came before me, but because the jeans happen to fit exactly how I would like them to. Wearing one article of clothing so long allows for it to truly form to your body. Anyone who is familiar with the process of breaking in jeans knows that a pair of denim will start to take on a personal shape entirely your own as you “wear” your personal stamp into them.
For those of you who could care less about how anyone’s jeans “age” or in general about people who care so much about their clothing that they actually pay attention to how their jeans change over time well than this post is largely meaningless for you.I actually don’t know how long I have been wearing these jeans so for the denim-heads out there I apologize for lack of defined detail. At the end of the day however I enjoy the simplicity of only having one pair of jeans. As opposed to opening up four separate drawers of fresh t-shirts from every corner and brand of the globe, the jeans are utterly simple. There is no debate when I am headed out of the door when it comes to that part of what I’m wearing, I always know that as far as denim is concerned Levi himself has my back. This opens up an interesting point about the “wear-ability” of clothing. In a culture such as streetwear in which being “fresh” is held vaunted above everything else, there is something to be said for the simplicity of wearing what “works.” Wearing one article of clothing every day is probably the literal opposite of being “fresh” but there is stark difference in the attraction of wearing something that works everyday. It’s for this reason that there is an undeniable appeal in the uniform and costume of the classic working man such as rail-workers or miners. There is nothing flashy, nothing superfluous, just perfection in cut and functionality. This is a little far to take a bried discussion about denim, but the reality is that there is a huge market right now for classic American work-wear and this is where it derives from.
At the end of the days they are just jeans right? However deeply you choose to look into the functionality aspect of your clothing is to the side, all I know is that as I sit here in class writing this post, I have my literal “second skin” resting right between my legs and my note book and it couldn’t be any better. Jeans for the win folks, function over flash.