Denim is Inappropriate for the Golden Era

[Dostioffsky]

I like this outfit, from Battling Butler 1926

 

[Harry Gooch]

From Wikipedia, "The name "denim" derives from the French serge de Nîmes, referring to the city of Nîmes."

I read somewhere that this name came into vogue in the first decade of the 20th century, though Levi's were of course around much earlier.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Denim was worn as work clothes through the Golden Era. It was when jeans became everyday wear in the fifties, as a protest against Golden Era values, that what we consider Golden Era style and principles began to fade away.

Go ahead and wear them for working in the garden, or with a fancy shirt to a barn dance, other than that they don't have a place in what this Lounge considers Golden Era styles.

 

[Feraud]

Do you think Denim (in the form of a pair of jeans, or a denim jacket) have any place in Golden Era revivalism? I've always associated jeans with the 1950s and the Baby Boomer generation, and jean jackets with the 1970s and Rock N' Roll. I've always felt Jeans - at least the widespread wearing of them- was a symbol of the Golden Era's ending.

But I'm curious about your opinions?

The Golden Era is a many faceted thing. Unfortunately in any type of revivalism folks tends to latch on to one aspect of the era and run wild with it. I’ve seen it happen here too.

Denim was a part of the Golden Era. It was not a popular sartorial component handed down to us through media but it had its place.

I find it hard to blame inanimate objects for the perceived moral failings of culture. To explore that idea you would be better off looking at the culture and politics of the time. Wearing jeans doesn’t make one a bad person.

 

[Haversack]

Acceptance of denim definitely varied. My father, (California born but the son of an English valet and butler), never owned a pair of jeans his entire life. For gardening or backpacking, he wore what he called 'suntans'. (i.e. Khakis). My mother, (also California born and raised on a ranch), was in Bluebell Wranglers from an early age.

 

[Stearmen]

Denim was worn as work clothes through the Golden Era. It was when jeans became everyday wear in the fifties, as a protest against Golden Era values, that what we consider Golden Era style and principles began to fade away.

Go ahead and wear them for working in the garden, or with a fancy shirt to a barn dance, other than that they don't have a place in what this Lounge considers Golden Era styles.

You must have missed the thread, What is the Golden Era to you? on The Fedora Lounge. While I don't consider the 50s-60s Golden era, (I don't even consider 1946-49 Golden era.) Many on the Lounge do, either 50s only, or through the 60s. There were even a few that thought, at least the first half of the 70s Colden Era!

 

[Ralph_Phillips]

It was a bit later, but sometime during the 1940's or 1950's, Bing Crosby went on a hunting trip in Canada and was wearing jeans. The hotel where he was staying, or the hotel restaurant, kicked him out because he wasn't wearing formal attire. Levi Strauss then made Bing a formal suit out of blue denim.

 

[Ralph_Phillips]

Also of note, my grandfather (born 1903) was a farmer, and until the 1960's, if he had to go to town, he would always return to the house first to change out of denim and into a suit.

 

[Speakeasy]

Don't own any denim, here. If I have rough stuff to do it's khakis for me, and for everything else either a suit or wool trousers/jacket.