19th Century
The exhibition’s historic chronology begins with rare pieces of denim work wear from the 19th century, including a pair of work pants from the 1830s-40s that predate Levi Strauss & Co.’s jeans production and a woman’s work jacket from the late 19th century, which demonstrates that denim was not only a menswear fabric. Building on…
1900–1929
By the start of the 20th century, denim was regularly used for a variety of clothing, from prison garb to naval uniforms. Also on view in this section is a fashionable women’s walking suit from the 1910s rendered entirely in a striped, white denim. Cut in accordance with the fashionable silhouette of the time, the…
1930s and 1940s
Denim further shed its working-class associations during the interwar years. Two distinct genres of lifestyle clothing helped link denim to the romance of the Old West and the American spirit: “Western wear” emerged parallel to the booming popularity of “cowboy” films and dude ranch vacationing, while “play clothes” were designed to outfit fashionable men and…
1950s and 1960s
As the American middle class settled into suburbia during the 1950s, denim suddenly became controversial. The influence of films like 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause (and the jeans worn in the movie by James Dean) caused denim to be equated with teenage rebellion and delinquency. The denim industry worked to counteract these negative connotations—by founding…
1970s and 1980s
By the early 1970s, denim was appearing in the work of esteemed fashion designers. Yves Saint Laurent treated it as a luxury fabric, and later in the decade, European companies, such as Fiorucci, launched a craze for “Italian” and “French” jeans. These companies used sex to sell their skin-tight jeans, which were often so snug…
1990s and 2000s
By the end of the century, denim had emerged as a true luxury item on the runways of Gucci, Katharine Hamnett, and Gianfranco Ferré. This spawned a “premium denim” market pioneered by companies like 7 For All Mankind and Acne. In contrast, the burgeoning Japanese denim industry focused on historic details of American heritage brands…
2010s–present
Today, contemporary designers often incorporate denim through postmodern pastiche and deconstruction, taking apart classic denim garments and putting them back together as historic homages. This approach references the textile’s journey through shifting cultural associations. As Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward suggest, “[J]eans seem to have taken on the role of expressing something about the changing…