Dark Colors Are Hippest On The Hips

Pity the poor bluejeans.

Ever since they sauntered their way into vogue in the ‘50s, Americans have done just about everything conceivable to the icon of casual wear.

Hippies frayed ‘em and patched ‘em. Urban cowboys and disco queens starched them to barn-board stiffness. Punks and grungers ripped ‘em to shreds. Dwight Yoakam tore out their knees, and club kids tore out their bottoms.

Jeans have been stone-washed, acid-washed and sand-washed - even blasted with shotguns to elevate their holiness.

Over the decades, they’ve been bleached to within a thread of their lives and colored every unnatural hue on earth.

We abuse them, but we love them: American men bought almost 300 million pairs in 1995 (up 8 percent over ‘94), and women and girls bought more than 170 million (up 3 percent).

The affinity for denim is not just a Yankee phenomenon.

For example, the market in vintage American jeans has exploded in Japan, with pre-1960 Levi’s, Lee’s and Wrangler models fetching prices into the thousands of dollars.

“I saw enough denim to cover an Alp,” said Norman Karr, executive director of Jeanswear Communications, a trade industry group, after a recent trip to Switzerland.

“And the scene in Bern, Interlaken and Lucerne was repeated again in Vienna, Prague and throughout central Europe.

“It is more evident that the appeal of jeans cuts across oceans, continents, generational and income lines.”

So what’s left to make one of everybody’s favorite casual wardrobe staples “different” for fall?

A return to jeans’ original indigo roots - not unlike the traditional stiff work pants favored by French sailors in the 1700s, California gold miners in the mid-1800s and every 1950s “hood” with a motorcycle and a James Dean attitude.

Jeans are heading back to the dark side for fall. Blues are deep, deep, deep. Blacks approach midnight.

“Blacks go blacker and colors, deeper,” said Dutch Leonard, president of Burlington Denim, a major denim manufacturer.

“Dark colors, over-constructed fabrics and gray casts for authenticity bring fashion to these basics.”

Denim also is changing in other, less obvious, ways. The new generation of denim may look like the old - dyed inky deep blue and stiff as a pine board - but technology is making it more palatable to mid-‘90s tastes.

Denim for this season - from jeans and shirts to jackets and skirts - is lighter in weight, softer in feel and shinier in appearance. An old favorite is going uptown, sophisticated and high-tech.

“Soft jeans” is a buzz phrase creeping into the fashion lexicon.

New denim-based fabrics are being created by adding stretchy synthetics, such as Lycra and spandex, and eco-friendly fibers such as Tencel, spun from shredded plastic soda bottles.

The hybrids are more comfortable and forgiving, retain their shape longer and hold their colors better. The result is a more sophisticated look that meshes with the trend toward dressier casual wear.

Jeans have taken a bad rap in the dress-down workplace movement, but that may change as denim goes upscale.

“Change, change and more change,” Leonard said, “is the story for denim for 1996 and beyond.”