Denim and Youth Culture: A Critical Analysis
I will be exploring the relationship between denim and youth culture from the start of the 20th century to the present day. Looking at mainly the USA and sometimes the UK, I will investigate the history of denim as a popular fabric in fashion, and especially examine the process of its transformation from a labourer’s uniform to a worldwide symbol of youth and rebellion. I chose denim as the subject of my research as I find its political and social journey fascinating, as well as my own personal love for it in my own fashion style. I truly believe that it is a fabric that encapsulates youth. I will be exploring its relevance to youth through subcultures in particular, starting with cowboys and analysing subsequent subcultures like greasers, hippies and punk rockers, as well as political movements such as anti- war protesters and civil rights activists. In the context of the 21st century, I will examine our current relationship with denim through the lens of my own student subculture; a series of nine photographs I have taken will accompany this. I have used statistical data to assess the impact of influencers on fashion nowadays, and what this might mean for denim in the future.
At its origin, denim wasn’t ever intended to be the fabric of youth, or even a fashionable fabric at all. In 1870 in the USA, Levi Strauss & Co. were the first company to produce denim on a small scale, first providing denim trousers (known by 1925 as “jeans”) to a woodcutter in Nevada. (Marsh and Trynka, 2005.) They quickly gained a reputation as the most durable work trousers on the market, and by the 1930s they were worn by huge numbers of labourers and workmen in the Western states of the USA. Levi Strauss & Co. played a significant role in gender equality in the 1930s, with the first women’s jeans released in 1934. (Marsh and Trynka, 2005.) This was revolutionary as trousers weren’t to become acceptable dress for women for many decades; denim has always encouraged change ahead of its time. “Lot 701” were the first of many models of women’s jeans, and they enabled the female youth to use wearing jeans as an act of rebellion against imposed gender stereotypes. Activism by women for gender equality was growing by the 1930s, following in the footsteps of the American Woman Suffrage Association the century prior. Levi’s was key in enabling female empowerment with their jeans.
A key subculture that popularised denim was Cowboys. Defined as someone who works herding cattle in the Western USA, cowboys have a huge and far-reaching cultural fame, and are infamous wearers of denim. Despite wearing jeans since their conception, the mainstream arrival of films in the 1930s and 40s thrust cowboys, and their jeans, into popular culture. The explosion of Western films in Hollywood meant that ‘the Cowboy was passing from real life into legend.’ (Marsh and Trynka, 2005: page 40.) As for denim, it was now being worn by Hollywood stars in movies, for example Clint Eastwood in the 1966 hit “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” The American youth, with usually no interaction with cowboys or denim, were now seeing jeans being worn by famous movie stars, sparking its snowballing popularity in fashion. This was also being recognised by manufacturers; in 1953, a time of heavy consumerism, one of Levi’s rivals, the H.D. Lee Mercantile Company began to target teen consumers in their advertising. (Marsh and Trynka, 2005.) It was certainly thanks to Hollywood, and some clever advertising, that the Cowboys ended up having such a large impact on youth fashion; jeans were now selling in large quantities in the mid 20th century.
In the 1950s and 60s, a distinct subculture emerged; greasers. The Greaser subculture emerged in Tulsa, Oklahoma and consisted of mostly working-class youths in street gangs who shared similar rebellious values and a distinctive collective fashion identity. Staples of this style were leather jackets and denim jeans. These jeans were distinctively rolled up at the ankle to show off their shoes. This way of wearing jeans is very much still prominent today, so members of the Greasers subculture were early pioneers of modern denim style. Their rebellion against mainstream norms cumulated in their fashion choices. Their choice of denim as clothing of rebellion demonstrates that denim was still in its relative infancy, not yet mainstream, but being used as a symbol of individuality, change and rebellion.
In 1960, ‘nearly half of America’s population is under 18 years old.’ (PBS: Pop Culture, 2005: online.) due to a post war baby boom. This meant that the youth dominated society, and there was an explosion of subcultures, each trying to forge their own individual cultural paths. In the 1960s, perhaps the most prominent of these was the Hippies. This very distinct subculture was characterised by a rejection of traditional social and political views, as well as protests, music, holistic medicine and communal living arrangements. (Britannica, 2022.) And, of course, their distinct fashion. Notable for very casual and unconventional dress, of ten in bright psychedelic colours, the hippies revolutionised the way people wore clothes, and especially denim. Denim jeans were worn in a new loose, relaxed way, and often customised with unique embroidery designs. Jeans were often ‘acid-washed’ to strip them of their distinct indigo colouring; a colour associated with wealth. Denim was quickly becoming ‘the uniform of counterculture.’ (Marsh and Trynka, 2005: page 80.) With hippies wearing denim and publicly challenging imperialism and inequality, (Zeige, 2019) people were starting to wear denim to fight for change. This fabric was rapidly becoming weighted in political and social significance.
In 1975 in London and New York emerged the punk rock subculture. Easily one of the most recognised subcultures in society, this widespread movement occurred simultaneously in the UK as well as the USA. Punk’s anti-establishment ideas extended to fashion, music, literature, and many other forms. In terms of fashion, their trademark was “anti-fashion”, meaning anything contrary to norms, and opposing the status quo. (Street and Worley, 2018.) They favoured a mish-mash of clothes, often thrifted, cut up and repurposed. This was arguably a very modernist approach to fashion, challenging over- consuming and unsustainable clothes shopping habits, which are also especially relevant nowadays in the 21st century. As of 2021, there are 3820 stores in the UK specialising in second hand clothing, where sales have grown by 27.2 percent in the year alone. (Sabanoglu, 2022.) Second hand fashion will undoubtedly continue to grow. For punk rockers, they also created denim styles that we still wear today; they created the iconic ripped Jean. Designed to be the very opposite of the put- together dress of the affluent classes, by deliberately ripping their denim punk rockers were challenging the very meaning of fashion, and using it to express their anti-fashion identity as a subculture. The lasting popularity of the punk rock style can be largely accredited to late British fashion designer Vivienne Westward, who in 1976 opened the wildly popular punk fashion store ‘SEX’ on the Kings Road in Chelsea. Westwood quickly became a pivotal figure in the movement, and ‘SEX’ was ‘the centre of the punk fashion scene and many young punks hung out, worked, or bought clothes there’ (Shannon, 2004: online.) It is arguable that Westwood was also in some part responsible for the over- commercialisation of punk fashion, which ‘fell victim to mass marketing in less than three years,’ (Shannon, 2004) barely giving the movement time to establish itself for its values. We can certainly thank Westward for punk’s longevity; it is still in style today, and also a permanent fixture in haute couture and runway fashion. (See Figure 1.) Through this, Westwood can be considered a true champion of denim.
Hip-hop fashion became hugely popular in USA in the 1990s. Despite originating in the Bronx as early as the 70s, the popularity of hip-hop music in the late 90s drove trends in hip-hop fashion. By 1999 hip-hop was one of the world’s largest music genres, and its associated fashion enjoyed a similar incline. This subculture signalled a change in the way people, especially Americans, were wearing denim. Jeans became slouchy and baggy, and denim was becoming increasingly common as casual wear. Album art from the 1995 Mobb Deep album ‘The Infamous’ featured loose, acid- wash jeans paired with Timberland boots. (Deleon, 2022.) Rappers and musicians, now seen as the pinnacle of high fashion, were wearing denim daily, prompting the rest of the world to follow suit. I believe that hip-hop was a turning point when denim became completely mainstream daily wear for the youth. You no longer had to be a modern punk rocker to wear denim; all young people were wearing it.
Aside from the undisputable influence of subcultures on denim’s style and popularity, in the 20th century denim was also hugely important politically. By the 1960s, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum in the USA. Civil rights activists were photographed wearing jeans to protests, including the leading figure of the movement, Martin Luther King Jr. (See Figure 2.) In 1962 in Huntsville, Alabama, protesters challenged segregation in department stores by ‘replacing Easter Sunday with “Blue Jean Sunday”.’ (Levi Strauss & Co, 2014: online.) Such was the significance of blue jeans to their cause, and the stores lost a million dollars in the boycott. (Levi Strauss & Co, 2014.) In the 1965 Alabama protest marches, the United Press reported that they wore the ‘blue denim “uniform” of the civil rights movement.’ (Tensley, 2020: online.) Denim was clearly making an impact; America’s United Press International were commenting on its significance. I believe that wearing jeans was not a coincidence, but a strategy to seem more approachable, as well as linking to African Americans heritage as labourers. Denim was becoming the fabric of protest, politics and change.
With the USA’s increasingly alarming presence in Vietnam in the 1960s came a flood of anti- war protests across the nation. Dominated by students and young people, who themselves can be considered their own subculture, the group were very deliberately united by their fashion, which served to unite them and create a recognisable image for their cause. Their fashion often contradicted gender norms, for example men wore long hair and bell bottom jeans, which challenged the leg-fitting style previously worn by males. For denim, these bell-bottom jeans- also known as flares- were becoming the iconic image of freedom and equality. They were worn by thousands of protesters in the 1967 march on the Pentagon in Washington DC; one of the largest demonstrations of the 21st century. Recently in 2020 bell-bottoms made a surprise comeback, with the 21st century youth starting to wear flares again, in ‘a time period that seems to resemble the sixties, with cries of social justice, voting rights, and equality.’ (Hutzelman, 2021: online.) Jeans have become more than a fashion accessory, with flares being worn by the youth as an expression political discontent, and a recognisable feature of a uniform for change.
For the youth of today, myself included, denim is part of most people’s wardrobes. Worn casually or formally, denim is indispensable. In the age of booming social media, we have access to imagery of denim worn more ways than Levi Strauss could ever have imagined. On social media platform Instagram, the hashtag ‘#Denim’ has over 22 million posts. In the media, in 2022 British Vogue’s online website published 11 articles solely dedicated to denim (Vogue, 2022); these articles have huge celebrity power with names such as Kate Moss and Kendall Jenner. In a time when social media has infiltrated so much of our lives, the influence of the ‘celebrity’ is larger than ever. With famous super-models now choosing to wear denim, its image is endlessly far reaching. There has also been a huge shift in the last decade away from traditional fashion advertising, with clothes being advertised by social media “influencers” instead. A 2020 analysis into the global fashion influencer market valued its worth as 2.02 billion USD at the time of analysis, and projected the industry to grow to a value of 17.12 billion USD in 2027. (Grant View Research, 2022.) This immense projected growth signals a fast-evolving fashion climate, of which denim makes up a sizeable part; ‘the global denim jeans market [is] forecast to be worth around 87.4 billion dollars [by 2027.]’ (Smith, 2022: online.)
Amy Leverton’s book “Denim: Street Style Vintage Obsession” (Leverton, 2018) is an exciting visual celebration of denim, spotlighting people wearing denim globally, presented through photography. This included fascinating insights into the differences in expression through denim globally. These images prompted me to reflect on how denim is worn in my specific student area of Manchester, as well as whether my group of student peers is its own subculture; I believe it is. The university students living in my area of Manchester, share distinct views, habits and fashion. Denim is a large part of this fashion identity. Keen to visually express our subculture’s relationship with denim, I photographed one of my peers for a series of nine photographs. I booked out a photography studio, choosing a plain white background inspired by the clean, simple style of fashion photography duo “Mert and Marcus,”[1] whom I researched. I think that the final outcome, “Eia wearing Denim” (see Figure 3) is a successful visual story of my peer and her personal relationship with denim, as well as what denim means for our subculture as a whole. 
To conclude, denim and youth subcultures are intrinsically linked. Their relationship goes both ways, with denim defining subcultures, as well as subcultures defining the meaning of denim. Whilst not intended to be a symbol of youth when jeans were created for labourers, the subsequent social movements and subcultures of the 20th century cemented denim as a fabric of youth. I believe that the punk rock movement was perhaps the most influential subculture for denim, with Vivienne Westwood being instrumental in the style’s longevity. Aside from the ever-changing styles of denim fashion, its political connotations are a crucial part of the fabric’s meaning and status. The civil rights movement in particular led to denim becoming politically charged, and favoured by those fighting for equality. The prominence of jeans in the anti-war protests gives denim connotations of freedom, youth and rebellion. Such is denim’s powerful reach, that when the Berlin Wall was broken down in 1989, ‘the young people who dismantled the first bricks were famously photographed wearing blue jeans.’ (Levi Strauss & Co, 2014: online.) I have realised that denim is also symbolic of America. Whilst sometimes occurring in the UK, the growth of denim has been largely shaped by events in the USA; it is seen as so distinctly ‘American’ that as of 2021, jeans are banned in North Korea. In the 21st century, denim is arguably no longer restricted just to young people; it is now a mainstream fabric worn by people of all ages, genders and nationalities. That said, I believe denim will always be symbolic as the fabric of youth, as shown by the 2020 revival of the bell-bottom jean, as we continue to fight for equality and change.
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List of Figures
Figure 1
Vogue. (2022) Vivienne Westwood: Spring 2023 ready-to-wear. [Online] [Accessed on 8 Jan 2023] https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2023-ready-to-wear/vivienne-westwood
Figure 2
Heddels (2020) Martin Luther King Jr. and the workwear of Civil Rights. [Online] [Accessed on 29 Nov 2022] https://www.heddels.com/2020/01/martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-radical-styles-of-civil-rights-activism/
Figure 3 & Header Image
Photographs taken by Author
© Nik Macey 2022