Larry Kubart, clothes by Jaion's
Boid stripes for the bold man.
Jr5w
&1SHI0N
I
Tweeds and textures. . .for the rough and ready look.
Bath Malaahock, Clothat by Wooden Nickel
fryr 'C;...? ill'
I -X "Ny A-
fcanaaua'
They treat races and sexes equally. They are found
in homes of the rich and the poor, in the city and the
country. You can see them shinnying up trees and
shining up rocking chair seats. They unite the Old
West with the New Left.
Denims are America's common denominator.
They are to the pants industry what Volkswagen is
to Detroit. They have remained essentially unchanged
since 1850, when Levi Strauss went west to California
and turned canvas into gold. Even today's
bell-bottomed jeans are copies of a functional style of
the '90s, designed to pass easily over long-toed boots.
STRAUSS HAD never dreamed of Original
Riveted Trousers when he came to San Francisco. He
thought the canvas he had imported from Nimes,
France, would be great for tents. Some say the
material came to be called "serge de Nimes" ghen
"de Nimes," and eventually "denim." Anyway,
Strauss soon discovered the material was unfit for
tents.
But people of Strauss '$ ilk are the bricks in the
foundation of American capitalism. Strauss would
have been the first to say that serendipity is no
accident When a miner came to call one day, and
Strauss decided the man would be the first in camp to
have canvas pants.
Later Alkali Ike, the prospector's Ralph Nader,
gets credit for prodding Strauss's company into
adding the famous rivets. Ike liked to carry rocks
around in his pockets, and he knew that in the
shoot -first, ask -questions-later Old West, a guarantee
was a guarantee. Finally his Virginia City tailor
riveted the pockets sown for him, and soon after all
Levi's had their trademark.
THESE TROUSERS with rivets were such a good
thing that no one thought to conceal them until the
late 1920s when H.D. Lee's innovation saved future
generations millions of dollars in scratched saddles
and furniture.
Early Levi's were loose-fitting and canvas-colored.
Legend has it that cowboys were responsible for the
snug, low-slung, fit of today's jeans-because of the
need for comfort in the saddle and protection from
snags on cactus and sagebrush.
Denims today are mass produced, but the process
is usually craftsmanlike: Levi's, for example, go
through 26 operations and 17 kinds of thread. What
goes on in the heads of world fashion exploiters,
however, means little to denim wearers. They may
come tie-dyed, bleaches or frayed, but these are
better seen as a reaction to fashion, or a parody of
fashion.
The obvious point is this: if you don't cotton to
the latest Paris fashion tantrum, denims give you
some leeway.
,.1
I
;: 1
Beth Matachocfc
BELL
and
FLARE
JEANS
Blue Denim
Solid Colors
And Stripes
LINCOLN
ARMY
& WESTERN
STORE
11th & N
SPECIAL
HARNESS BOOTS
$19.95
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAE7
wcnwccnAV APRII 7 1971
