Acid. Snow. Stone. Ripped. Studded. Shredded. Graffiti. Designer. This was 1980s denim. It was as over-bleached and processed as hair styled in a big blonde mullet.
It was lined with colourful comic-strip fabrics to accompany yellow lipstick and fluorescent pink socks. It was distressed to be layered with oversized shirts and jumpers. It was hacked, torn, drawn on, and pierced. It became retro cool when stripped off in a launderette. It was decadent and designer and it was always desirable.
And the more denim the better. While comedian Harry Enfield bragged that he had 'Loadsamoney', most people in the 1980s wanted loads of denim. The double and even triple denim style from the 1970s was not the fashion flop it later became. Denim skirts were paired with denim waistcoats; denim shirts were tucked into denim shorts, then snuggled under denim jackets.
Why were there so many denim crazes between 1980 and 1990? What drove the explosion of finishes, washes and styles?
The denim-devoted decade dawned with 15-year-old American actress Brooke Shields in a Calvin Klein jeans advert. She pouted at the camera, long legs clad in dark slinky jeans, stating provocatively that nothing came between her and her Calvins. American fashion designer Klein himself declared, 'Jeans are sex. The tighter they are, the better they sell'.
Originally made for US gold prospectors by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in the 1870s, jeans (or 'waist overalls') rode through the 1920s and 1930s as sturdy workwear for miners, cowboys and farmers. In the mid-1950s film 'The Wild One' they were teamed with a white t-shirt, leather jacket and sunglasses on Marlon Brando's smouldering hoodlum biker Johnny Strabler. James Dean wore them to play a delinquent teenager in 'Rebel Without a Cause' and so they were adopted as everyday wear by rebellious youngsters and the writers of the Beat Generation. During the 1960s they were woven into the psychedelic patchwork of the youthful freedom-loving hippy movement.
Calvin Klein was the first fashion designer to launch a denim line
In the 1970s there was a shift from jeans being viewed as counter-culture statements or rugged workwear to an essential part of anyone's casual trendy wardrobe. Combined with pretty blouses and bouncy shiny hair, jeans were connected with a vigorous vibe. Glamorous actress Farrah Fawcett and fashionable wide-eyed models were photographed in flared jeans and denim shorts. European clothes company C&A marketed 'Jinglers' jeans for both men and women with energetic brightly coloured adverts. The cotton fabric, whose name is borrowed from 'serge de Nîmes', became very commonplace and not limited to jeans. Boots, caps and bags were formed from denim to accompany 'his and hers' jeans and jackets.
In 1977 Calvin Klein was the first fashion designer to launch a denim line and this encouraged denim into other fashion designers' collections. Designer jeans became a status symbol, flaunted in lavish advertising campaigns. High-end designer Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel made large unisex denim blazers and Azzedine Alaïa folded denim into form-fitting garments, many with the 1980s power dressing silhouette of wide boxy shoulders and small waist.
The ability of this durable cotton twill fabric to mold itself around each wearer made it fit better and more comfortably than trousers made from other fabrics. The flapping bell-bottoms of the 1970s were replaced by Calvin Klein's slim leg cuts tapering slightly at the ankle. Guess jeans were form fitting, echoing 1950s cigarette pants, while Jordache's jeans featured a high nipped-in waist. Today there are many brands that make jeans to shape, sculpt and enhance the body. The long streamlined legs which Brooke Shields displayed in 1980 have never gone out of fashion.
In 1982 Scottish fashion stylist Ray Petri introduced a rebellious urban look, the opposite of Klein's lean glossy style. This look became known as 'Buffalo', the term taken from the Caribbean expression to describe rude boys or rebels. Influenced by the mutinous Marlon from the 1950s, Petri's North London creative crew of models, musicians and photographers wore their denim with leather jackets. They added oversized layers and ripped their Levis 501s.
Like the leather jacket, the ripped jean wasn't new. It was developed from the mid-1970s anti-establishment statement of worn out jeans, work boots and baggy overalls. Members of The Ramones and Richard Hell from the band Television displayed this look in New York's punk and new wave music club CBGBs. Audacious British duo Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood carried this lacerated look to London's Kings Road clothes shops. McLaren's punk band The Sex Pistols elevated the attire of Hell to a new level of shredded tattiness with the addition of safety pins and zips.
By the time 1988 rolled around the rips in jeans were larger than ever
In early-1980s Britain — a country which was fighting recession, the Falklands War and miner's strikes — designer denim wasn't worn in clubs. Against a backdrop of social unrest, studded with the threats of AIDS/HIV and terrorism, the trend for distressed and baggy jeans was named 'Hard Times' by journalist Robert Elms. The appetite for damaged denim, and indeed denim jeans themselves, may have dwindled again. In mid-1984 fashion commentators were ready to dismiss the blue jean altogether. Despite the bleak economic start to the decade, dynamic creatives formed a fashion industry fed by the London club scene and supported by the British Government. English fashion designer Katherine Hamnett, known for her large white T-shirts printed with political slogans, incorporated shredded denim into her collection. This look was quickly seen on music acts like JoBoxers, Dexy's Midnight Runners and Haysi Fantayzee.
By the time 1988 rolled around the rips in jeans were larger than ever. Members of the tanned boyband Bros wore light coloured jeans with gaping holes in knees, bottom and groin. Jeans were simply not fashionable if they were not slit in multiple places and were worn by a tribe of people who enjoyed defying decency by showing their skin or underwear. Ripped jeans are still being sold and tattered denim formed part of Californian designer Rio Uribe's 2018 Gypsy Sport collection.
Rather than wearing denim for years to achieve a faded, worn appearance, the fabric could be prematurely abraded by washing it with pumice stones. Stonewashed denim had been around since the 1960s as surfers preferred faded, soft jeans and so their denim was bleached with chlorine or sunlight. Worn denim was a desired look in the 1970s, continuing into the 1980s when Lee Jeans began large-scale use of the stonewashing technique in 1982.
In the early 1980s punks splattered their jeans with bleach for a home-made marbling effect as well as decorating their denim with embroidered band patches and studs. Jeans brand Guess offered the first 'pre-washed' jeans as early as 1981 but it was Italian company Rifle Jeans in 1986 who gave the world acid washed jeans. Instead of using just pumice stones, the denim was accidentally exposed to stones and bleach. The method of using chlorine or potassium permanganate to strip off the top layer of denim, leaving the white underneath exposed, was picked up by Levi's.
Blue jeans worked best for acid washing, but black jeans were also suitable. Acid wash — also known as marble wash or moon wash — resulted in a sharper contrast or more splotchy effect than stone washing alone. Acid, snow washed and ripped jeans worn with fringed or motorcycle jackets were a sartorial staple of heavy metal or glam metal bands like Def Leppard, Poison and Bon Jovi. Due to the new wave of treatments pouring onto the mass market the whole world seemed clad in heavily bleached denim.
Snow-washed denim endured into the mid 1990s as part of the punk heavy metal 'grunge' subculture, teamed with slouchy flannel shirts and messy hair. Acid wash denim is still produced as part of 1980s fashion revivals and has been recently worn by singers Rihanna and Katie Perry.
More colour entered fashion from around 1984 as the dour shades of brown and green from the previous decade were cast off. The American singer Madonna, whose career started in the New York club scene, wore her ripped denim with mesh vests. She flaunted lime greens, lemon yellows and lurid oranges in both makeup and plastic jewellery. Most people had a least one fluorescent item in their wardrobe.
Italian luxury fashion house Moschino produced clothes in primary paint box colours and with bold markings and Jean Paul Gaultier preferred brilliantly-coloured tartan. Jeans were not to be the neutral garment to offset blocky patterns and rainbow excess; denim was produced to be as striking as the garments and accessories it was worn with.
By 1987 denim was in danger of becoming too popular, according to ID magazine, so the last years of the 1980s experienced a burst of customisation. As with other denim crazes, this one drew influence from the past. Patchwork jeans were popular amongst 1960s hippies, and as denim became more glamorous in the 1970s, it was embellished with embroidery, glitter and fringing.
In the late 1980s denim was again decorated with patches and strips of bright material. Marker pens and studs defaced jackets and jeans in a fever of home-made elaboration. These alterations enhanced the still-popular ripped jeans. Denim coats lined with fabric patterned with vivid comic strips were made by Jordache and brought into high street chains. Shorts and waistcoats were created simply by chopping off jean legs and jacket sleeves.
Glossy designer adverts such as Calvin Klein's and the launch of music channel MTV in 1981 led to a greater exposure of denim trends than in previous decades. In the mid-1980s the three influences of music, fashion and TV all came together in a striking commercial by a UK advertising agency.
Relaunching their 'Basics' line, Levi's commissioned Bartle Bogle Hegarty to make an advert which would attract 16-18 year-olds to their 501 jean. The jeans had an old-fashioned cut, were not acid washed or ripped and they featured a buttoned fly. They also cost more than £20!
The advert's star was one of Ray Petri's 'Buffalo' model muses, Nick Kamen. He sauntered into a launderette, stripped off his black t-shirt and dark blue Levi's 501s and dumped them in a washing machine. Ignoring the scandalised looks of the other customers he sat down to wait in his white boxer shorts, all to the nostalgic beat of Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. The 501 became the most popular jean in the world, Nick had a hit single with 'Each Time You Break My Heart', and 1950s pop music enjoyed a revival and was featured in other Levi's adverts.
Music videos were the primary way to bring together music, dance and fashion and were not just contained to MTV. They were shown on many TV shows and became an art-form in their own right. All the denim trends were on show along with other 1980s fashions and hairstyles. Even sport wasn't immune to the lure of denim. American tennis player Andre Agassi wore a tiny pair of Nike acid wash denim shorts at the USA Open in 1988 with a baggy white t-shirt and his trademark long highlighted hair. USA tennis outfitter Vollaix made similar denim shorts in 2017 for those wanting to copy Agassi's sports heartthrob style.
Denim could have faded away, the blue jean returning to be only worn by labourers and cowboys. Twice in the 1980s it was ready to be forsaken as a fashionable item. But denim is a unique fabric because it is both ubiquitous and personal. It changes over time, shaping itself to the wearer's body. In the 1980s these attributes were exploited by designer fashion and inventive club trends. The results of the surge of funding and creativity was taken to the mass market by music videos and advertising and by the mid-1980s the frenzy of consumerism meant that people were eager to buy.
Denim's versatility and industrialisation of treatments meant that stone washing and acid treatments were available easily and cheaply. The innovative spirit behind new technology such as mobile phones, games consoles, synthesisers and computers infected fashion. Designers experimented and not only took past influences but made them, like everything else in the 1980s, big.
Denim still enjoys enormous global appeal, but it was in the 1980s that denim had never had it so good. Or as crazy.
