Blue Collar American Culture

Introduction

From its humble beginnings in the mines of Gold Rush California to its current showcases in fashion shows around the world, the blue jean is, paradoxically, a quintessential symbol of blue collar American culture, and, simultaneously, a globally accepted wardrobe staple that some argue has become the first post-semiotic garment. Jeans come in two very specific categories these days; pants worn to make a statement, or the pair thrown on for the sake of simplicity and comfort. Blue jeans are embroiled in a long cycle of contrasting binaries: blue collar vs blue blood, trendy vs rebellious, practical vs impractical, iconic vs ordinary. Levi-Strauss and Co. received their patent for riveted “metal pants” in 1873 and they initially

The introduction of “indigo dyed, serge de Nimes, ‘denim’” (Patton 297), created the telltale blue color of the pant, and a partnership with a prospector named Jacob ‘Alkali Ike’ Davis, who had invented a method of strengthening the seams of his pants with metal rivets, all combined to create the 1873 Levi 501 pants. This is the genesis of blue jeans as an item in American

Initially attempting to mimic the style of American’s, Europeans quickly began to repurpose the garment into a sort of novelty or nostalgia item and the trend was so popular that soon American’s were buying European jeans themselves. This is another significant inversion of the narrative of the blue jean, a workingman’s pant that was worn by the white-collar man to associate himself with the values of the peasant class finds itself emulated by the European fashion scene and then is resold to the working class and elite alike as standard attire for all. This is not to say that the market for jeans had swung all the way into the realm of leisure and fashion. For every new stylization or impractical addition to the pant there seemed to be a reciprocal demand for authentic working jeans from the consumers who were alternatively attracted to the fashion of the object and its traditional representation of the lower social