Republished from OBSOLETE! #4.
Style
is a product of it's era. Through most of history, fashion has been a
luxury of the well-to-do, and styles have reflected the morals and
values of the wealthiest in a society. Working class “finery”
has generally consisted of cheap knockoffs or homespun imitations of
the styles of the wealthy. In the 20th and early 21st
century however, the style has come up from the street, and no look
has been more consistently revisited than the blue suit.
I
speak not of the definitive navy blue wool business suit, that
timeless uniform of the bourgeois, but of the blue denim suit- jeans
and denim jacket. The “denim sandwich” or “Canadian tuxedo”
has been alternately loved and reviled by fashionistas and worn
unapologetically by cowboys, bikers, iron workers, farmers, punks,
metal heads and hillbillies for generations. Countless designers have
tried (and universally failed miserably) to improve on it- acid
washed, studded, cropped, tailored, distressed, dyed- yet nothing and
no one has managed to change the basic rule- only the traditional cut
and color will do, and only the wearer can make the blue suit cool.
For
those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's, the blue suit is
something we have never been without. For much of our lives, the
uniform of the day has been the same timeless combination. Sometimes
it has been a statement, but in general, it's just what you wear- a
habit of sorts. Riding your Stingray at 12, delivering pizzas at 18,
playing in a punk band at 20, hanging drywall (or going to your
copy-editing job) at 30- it's always been there.You've slept in it,
then gone to work in it the next day. It kept your skin on when you
laid down your bike. Who fucking cares if it's “in”? Fashion
websites run articles with titles like “How to rock a denim jacket”
and “How to wear a jeans jacket without looking like a douchebag”.
All of them state that rule #1 is to not wear a denim jacket with
jeans. I say, rule #1 is, if you ARE a douchebag, you will look
like one in a jeans jacket.
For
fans of various musical genres, though, the blue suit is nothing
short of iconic. Lately it's the favorite of rappers and country
singers. It seems that the rappers generally know enough to stick
with dark blue and opt for the high dollar Levi's jacket. The country
singers (and American idol rejects) almost universally fall for the
1980's Jersey girl/Bon Jovi/Brighton Beach Russian housewife
designer-faded shit.
For
metal heads and punks, it has always been the warm-weather
alternative to leather- or the jacket you wore while saving up for a
biker jacket. If you see a photo of one of the Ramones not wearing a
biker jacket, they are probably in a denim jacket.
The
most important thing about choosing a blue suit nowadays is finding
items made in the USA. Levi's moved production overseas in the 90's
but they are currently advertising “Hand Made in the USA” jackets
and jeans. However, the price tag is an astronomical 210 bucks for a
jacket and 190 for a pair of 505s. Other US companies sell made in
the USA jackets and jeans in the $50-$75 range- Carhartt, Pointer,
All-American clothing and others.
The
history of denim is the history of America, and there is still
nothing so quintessentially American as blue jeans. Many a pair of
Levi's has been bartered away by broke Americans traveling abroad. As
America's star rapidly falls and the value of the dollar drops, the
blue suit is becoming once again as relevant for it's utilitarianism
as it's style. The stream of “Oakies” that brought the denim
“look” to California in the 30's did so not as a fashion
statement, but because it was the only suit of clothes that could
hold up to their circumstances. It is not hard t imagine that in the
new age of “austerity” that the blue suit may once again take
it's place as the “uniform of the day”.
