Designer clothing and designer jeans are manufactured by high-end fashion designers, high-street stores and independent designer boutiques. Designer Jeans and Designer Clothing are named such due to having been designed by a well-known designer or design team, rather than being generically designed by a tailor or seamstress. The history of designer clothing goes back many hundreds of years, but it was not until after the Second World War did it really become a mainstream interest. Whilst rebuilding its economy, France discovered a economic and cultural gold-mine with its new Paris fashion shows.
Modern day Fashion design could be attributed as to having been brought to life by Charles Frederick Worth. He was the one that introduced Haute Couture (and the subsequent international media interest) to the world through the Parisian fashion show. Haute Couture is the wild side of fashion, greatly inspired by Art and the natural world more than it is by practicality of the clothing and its wearable purpose from the perspective of the wearer. Many fashion designer will release haute couture at fashion shows to raise their personal profile and the profile of their standard garment collections. Many haute cotoure items will be sold for tens of thousands of dollars to affluent fashion collectors. Charles had sewn the label onto the garment.
With the world’s attention now firmly on the fashion supernova that Paris can become, the new world of designer clothing had been reborn. Later on in the 40s, designer Eleanor Lambert decides that wants to divert some of the attention away from Paris and on to his hometown of New York Ciy. He creates and event called Press Week, at which he promotes his and his peers’ fashion designs. This new event took off with as much furore as the Paris events, and ‘Press Week’ evolved to become to what is now known as the grand New York Fashion Week event. It was Eleanor Lambert that also established the best fashion list, a who’s-who of the fashion industry.
Gabrielle Coco Chanel plays a role in the modern fashion, and is also responsible for bringing America designers into the spotlights. It was she that created the first wool jersey cardigan which became really popular amongst women. Chanel had a fashion boutique called Chanel Modes at 21 rue Cambon.
The first ‘designer’ jeans recorded are Levi’s jeans. Levi’s jeans are famous for the denim rivet. Take a look at any pair of jeans you have; you see those little metal studs or rings at certains points of the jeans, usually on and around the pockets? They’re for keeping the material strong, and Levis created those! The Levi’s brand logo feature two red horses, although its more iconic and recognizable branding is the ‘Red Tab’, a small piece of red clothing attached to the back pocket of all Levis jeans and on prominent location of other Levi’s clothing.
Designer jeans rocketing rise to popularity occurred during the 1970s and 1980s. New trends and styles in denim and jeans often originate in women’s jeans and are then picked up by the guys. A good example of this is the Jordache brand of jeans from the 70s and 80s,one of the first mass-market designer brands. These were initially designed for women but a men’s range was later released. Jordache’s big appeal at the time was that it had created a low-rise, boot cut jean; the legs were slightly flared to fit large boots but the jeans sat neatly around the hips, rather than half-way up the torso. Other labels were slow to pick up on this and Jordache had a near monopoly over this style. Unfortunately, the Jordache over-stretched themselves through diversification and licensing and the brand ultimately disappeared from the public eye. Jordache still lives on, although only as a shadow of its former popularity; recently most of its revenue comes from manufacturing licensed denim and through its investments in other businesses.
Designer clothing and designer jeans had fairly humble introductions into the global market, although they now undoubtedly a concrete part of the global economy and the public’s lifestyle. For many people, fashion is their life. Although a lot of the ‘designer’ clothing has been forlorn somewhat compared to its highs in the 90s, it is still very much at the forefront of high-street shopping. Multi-national department stores all carry collections from many designer clothing brands, and you’ll be very hard pressed to find a city or town that does not have a good supply of Levi’s and Wrangler jeans. Designer clothing has been around for a very long time and retains enough interest to ensure it will be around for a lot longer too.
