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PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAMY; MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY; SHUTTERSTOCK

Edited extracts fromThe

Golden Thread: How Fabric

Changed Historyby Kassia

St Clair (John Murray)

THINK (^) | HISTORY
COTTON
Denim and delinquents
Denim occupies a special place in the
modern psyche. In 2008, people globally
wore jeans three and a half days each
week. Germans were particularly
keen, wearing them, on average, a
little over five days a week and owning
nearly nine pairs.
Jea ns’ or ig ins were a s humble a nd
hardy workwear but, during the late
1940s, as soldiers began returning from
war in Europe, jeans became more
subversive. In a prosperous, conformist
era, there was growing anxiety about
rough young men who showed no desire
to be penned behind picket fences.
Hollywood played a pivotal part. After
1953, jeans suddenly evoked town-terror
Marlon Brando in The Wild One. They
were James Dean in Rebel Without a
Cause, or the turbulent, troubled ranch
man Dean played in Giant.
Denim became an emblem of
motorcycle boys and juvenile
delinquents: editorials scaremongered
and schools rushed to outlaw jeans.
Fearful that the bad-boy reputation
might depress sales, in 1957 Levi’s ran an
advertisement in newspapers showing a
clean-cut lad – the inverse of Dean’s rebel

• wearing jeans above the slogan ‘Right
  for School’. The firm received hundreds
  of complaints. “While I have to admit
  that this might be ‘right for school’ in San
  Fra ncisco, in t he west , or in some r ura l
  areas,” one woman from New Jersey
  wrote, “I can assure you that it is in bad
  taste and not Right for School in the East
  and particularly New York... Of course,
  you may have different standards.”
  Lev i’s needn’t have wor r ied. In 1958 a
  newspaper reported that “about 90% of
  American youths wear jeans everywhere
  except in bed and in church.”

James Dean:

rebel without a vest.

Though he did know how

to rock a pair of denims

Uneven turn-ups were

just the tip of the

rebellion for Marlon

Brando in The Wild One

“In 1958 a newspaper

reported ‘about

90% of American

youths wear jeans

everywhere except in

bed and in church’”