← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Gabrielle
Thread ID: 17893 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-04-21
2005-04-21 11:03 | User Profile
What a bloody waste of money!
"COLLETTE LEONARD would probably be the first to tell you that the premium denim thing is a little out of hand. She is aware of how loopy it is to lose one's senses in the quest for a neatly packaged posterior. She knows there is something fundamentally silly in indulging an obsession with foraging obsessively for the best, newest, most underground pair of five-pocket cotton trousers, of hoping to unearth the holy grail, jeans made by a label never yet photographed on Jennifer Aniston.
"It's just a pair of jeans, I realize that," said Ms. Leonard, who works for a liquor distributor in Manhattan. "But I wear two pairs every day, and I'd much rather go out and find something unique that you're not going to see on every girl in New York."
That is why Ms. Leonard was elated to uncover some import jeans sewn by a London label so obscure it is barely available on these shores.
The trousers, by All Saints, had slim straight legs and a stylized leather cross appliquéd just below the hip. Tea-stained lace trim adorned the hems and pockets. Without question there are people who would consider the price, a hefty $375, a deterrent. Ms. Leonard is not one of them.
"I don't balk at $500 for a pair of shoes," explained Ms. Leonard, who was shopping last month at Atrium, a boutique on Lower Broadway that is to premium denim what Barney Greengrass is to lox. "Why should I balk at that price for jeans that are special. "
Since the advent a half decade ago of the jeans category termed "premium" or "luxury" denim, referring to trousers that cost $75 or more, the price of what were once quaintly known as dungarees has spiked so precipitously it is now in cloud-cuckooland. More curious still, blue jeans have suddenly shed their proud proletarian roots and turned into what retailers call a status buy.
"For four years running, luxury denim has been the fastest growing category at the bottom part of the apparel business," said Marshal Cohen, the chief industry analyst at the NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y., which tracks clothing sales. Although no figures exist dividing the $14.2 billion denim market according to price, it is Mr. Cohen's qualifier - "bottom part" - that gives one pause.
There may have been a time when it was possible to consider oneself stylish in a pair of $100 jeans from, say, 7 For All Mankind, the label widely credited with helping ready the mass market for a new age in blue jeans. In cash register terms, at least, that time is gone. A stroll through the jeans bars that are now a ubiquitous element of the retail landscape has lately become a masochistic exercise in sticker shock.
Far from being rarities, jeans with price tags of $200 are now everywhere, the retail equivalent of dandelions after spring rain. And it no exaggeration to say that a pair these days can easily cost as much as an iPod (Tsubi, $319), a Motorola Razr (Levi's vintage, $325), or a desktop computer with the printer thrown in. (Nudie vegetable dye jeans, $428.)
As jeans have become an increasingly acceptable component of business and evening wear, a wardrobe staple suitable for any occasion (including board meetings, if one happens to be Steve Jobs), out of place nowhere except, possibly, funerals, the appetite for premium jeans has grown beyond a cowboy's wildest imaginings.
"Ten years ago nobody had ever heard of the category," said Robert Burke, the fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman, the longtime supplier to the carriage trade. "Now that premium is a fashion staple, everyone is wondering one thing," Mr. Burke added. "How high is high?"
Some other obvious questions follow. What exactly are premium jeans? And why are they different from the millions of ordinary pairs sold all the time? How much of the premium denim phenomenon is hype and how much real value is there in obscure attributes like ring-spun denim, triple-needle stitching, bleach "whiskers," or special treatments that abrade, distress and generally torture a pair of trousers until it has achieved just the right luxuriantly ratty patina of something that has been dragged behind a truck? It is exactly features like these that customers use to justify denim at $200 and up.'
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/fashion/thursdaystyles/21denim.html?th&emc=th[/url]
2005-04-21 11:55 | User Profile
Very few people make the kind of money that would allow them to indulge in $200 - $600 jeans. Young females working at liquor distributorships certainly don't. People are piling up debt like it's free money.
2005-04-23 20:53 | User Profile
Express sells high quality jeans that are based off the latest Italian fashions. They start out at $60 - $80, but after a few months they drop in price. The get different jeans every 3 months so after they have one style for two months the price drops to $30 - $40. After three months they are $30 and under.
I get compliments on my jeans by girls. I paid $30 a piece for all mine, and they look just as good as Diesel or anything else costing $200.