In Distress: Distressed Denim Trends

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IN DISTRESS

Faaria Khan // N0567783 Fashion Communication & Promotion


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“They feed the imagination, but they’re practical too.” Sullivan (2006, p.263)

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CONTENTS

1-2

Introductory Pages

3-4

Contents

5-6 Brand

and Retail Promotion Visual Analysis

7-8 Brand

and Retail Promotion Visual Analysis

9-12 Denim

& Its Connotations

13-16 Denim

Movements & Teen Spirit

17-22 The

Big Idea

23-24 References

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Brand and Retail Promotion - Visual Analysis

(fig. 1)

There is a ruggedness to both adverts, one portraying that more subtly than the other, and this seems fitting due to the fact that the subject is distressed jeans. It brings a youthful rebellion to mind with the way in which both Topman and Replay have chosen and styled their models. Topman and its female counterpart Topshop are both well known for focusing on the adolescent market sector and their latest denim advertising campaign has identified its target audience perfectly. The strongest contrast between the adverts is the colour choice. Replay’s model stands in a world of grunge-chic monochrome with ‘REPLAY’ in stark red letters standing out against the industrial backdrop. However, Topman has gone for a much softer alternative of what could be described as a minimalist neutral palette. It works as a good juxtaposition against the adolescent models used but also may transfer a subtler message being that the boys are at a tender stage in their lives. Poised on the brink of manhood their physical appearance may be a contrast within itself as their bodies are ‘neither here nor there’, almost stuck in ageing limbo. Being perched at the edge of a swimming pool reflects an athletic feel, whereas their nonchalant statures and expressions (not to mention the centre model’s tattoos) give off a contrasting rebellious vibe. There is a slight 80’s feel to the styling with the cropped jeans and white tube socks, perhaps suggesting we are progressing from the 70’s trend that has dominated the market this summer. The diversity in models also appeals to the modern view of equality we have today and could suggest that Topman want to make it clear that they’re reaching to a wide demographic of young males. On the other hand, Replay have showcased a female model on her own, putting all of the focus on her hard expression and dark clothing.

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Replay’s advert displays a type of ‘chic grunge’, and also seems to aim at a consumer type that wants to buy into a lifestyle but does not necessarily want to live it themselves all the time. The model is placed against an industrial New York background which produces a much harsher look overall than Topman’s tenderly casual masculine campaign. The jeans that both adverts are showcasing are very similar and follow the straight leg/skinny trend that has been circulating the market for about 5 years now. Other jean styles have tried to overcome this monstrous trend but it always comes back with a vengeance and this time it has been the turn of the distressed skinny. Another similarity is the way the adverts have very little writing on them, suggesting that the brands need little explanation. Replay’s has the brand name and in the bottom left hand corner the website is written but barely noticeable, whereas Topman have decided to give no website details or social media platforms but instead created a slogan for themselves with ‘THIS IS DENIM’ on several of the photos from their lookbook. It is a statement, but could suggest the brand is trying to make a name for themselves within all levels of the industry as a force to be reckoned with.


“DENIM

(TROTMAN, 2016)

IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TEXTILES OF THE 21ST CENTURY

(fig. 2)

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Brand and Retail Promotion - Visual Analysis

The displays for both brands vary slightly but also work quite harmoniously. There’s an element of the contemporary within both layouts and a fairly minimalistic colour palette. Nudie Jeans’ store in Barcelona has gone for their signature natural colour palette that compliments their signature blue jeans, whereas 3X1 have chosen a starker option, covering their walls in white which coincides with their summery location in the Hamptons. Nudie Jeans’ displays almost brings the jeans to life as they seem stand alone, the cardboard explosion coming from their waistbands almost hinting at the potential there is when you buy a pair of their jeans. The pairs are those that have been brought in by previous customers and each have their own story written next to them, suggesting that after purchasing a pair of jeans from the brand, you give them a life and a story of their own and that no pair is the same. Due to each piece of cardboard being ‘cut and assembled by hand, one by one’’ (Artica, 2014) it gives a more personal feel to the window displays and also to the store interior itself. The fact that the visual merchandising is so hands on reflects the values that Nudie Jeans have in their business philosophy and the way they look at consumerism in the denim sector of the industry. On the other hand, 3X1’s store gives off a different type of personal feel and that is one that leans more towards exclusivity. This may be because the brand creates bespoke jeans for their customers who usually pay a substantial amount of money for them or it may be because of the simplicity of the store layout itself. The final personal touch could be the fact that the store was designed by the brand’s creative director Scott Morrison.

Another factor that plays as a similarity between both businesses and the way they display their stores is the fact that both brands offer a certain element of bespoke services to their customers. Nudie Jeans offer a repair service for your lived in jeans and 3X1 offer a completely bespoke service of letting the customer pick out the type of denim they want in store and then having them oversee the full manufacturing process of their jeans. This bespoke theme plays a major part in the interior design of both brands’ stores, and an example of this is that both interiors have shelves above their products with industrial sized cones of thread placed upon them. This industrial feeling is continued with the ruggedness of the walls and flooring used in the stores and the railings that they have chosen to display their clothing on. The rails resemble the piping used in plumbing or the type of metal structuring that scaffolding is made out of. This adds to the worn down simplicity that both brands are trying to project and could entice customers into thinking that this type of new and honest minimalism is the way forward for denim.

IT FEATURES A CLEAN WHITEWASHED AESTHETIC, COMPLETE WITH AN ICONIC DENIM WALL THAT ALLOWS SHOPPERS TO SELECT FROM THE BEST DENIMS FROM ACROSS THE PLANET AND PLACE BESPOKE AND CUSTOM ORDERS.

(ARTICA, 2015)

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(fig. 3)

(fig. 4)

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(fig. 5)

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Denim & Its Connotations


“ The

associations are as bottomless as the color blue itself.

�

(Sullivan, 2006, p.265)

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The connotations surrounding distressed denim are varied and there have been hundreds of different opinions over the years. The main three associations with distressed denim in particular are those to do with grunge/punk teenage fashion, labourers’ clothing and also the sexual connotation of showing skin. All three of these connotations have different tribes of consumers who buy into them and all three of these connotations are polar opposites of one another.

Beginning with the idea of grunge/punk, it is known that it is mainly young adolescents or teenagers that fall into this fashion subculture and usually when they’re trying to rebel from society’s norms. Many brands have used this to their advantage over the years and have also made use of various rebellious icons that influenced the fashion subculture in the first place. Most brands that began to use these icons such as Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love as inspiration were the exact type of consumer companies that the artists were trying to rebel against.

These fashion subcultures that often begin with groups of teens are seen more as ‘phases’ that a person will go through during that age, however it is interesting that these ‘phases’ end up being something that a majority of teenagers take part in for at least several years of their life, even though a multitude of years has passed since the styles began to emerge. It could be because distressing and customising your denim yourself makes it even more unique and being unique is something that so many young people strive to be.

(fig. 6)

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Perhaps a more recent connotation surrounding distressed denim is one that is more on the scandalous side of fashion and that is to do with sex. Sex has always sold within the fashion industry and it could be said that it was one of the last areas distressed denim had spread to. It has been marketed in an increasingly sexual manner since the late 80s and this has definitely had an effect on the way people see those that wear it. The previous association of the rebellious punks also had an influence, often projecting a negative view onto those that are wearing denim that is distressed in a certain manner, associating them with being delinquents or a bad influence on society. This style has filtered into the mass market more and it does not really have the same personal association, however those that wear denim that is more scandalous are making a statement themselves as its not a road well travelled, therefore they possess a more unique style than most.

Of course, the first type of distressed denim came from a process that happened naturally and that was due to men and women wearing denim as a labourer’s uniform due to the fact that denim was such a hard-wearing fabric. After time the material would wear away in the part that was subject to the most friction and these would show what type of labour the wearer was doing. The erosion of the indigo in denim was a creative art in its own way and allowed the wearer to have their own unique pair that told their own story. This could be how Lee came up with their slogan “The Clothes You Need for the Life You Lead” (Sullivan, 2006, p.119) in 1961, as fashion was beginning to warm up to the idea that jeans could also be worn casually on an everyday basis.

(fig. 7)

Perhaps slashing your favourite pair of jeans when you’re feeling at your most rebellious allows you to make your own connotations surrounding denim.

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(fig. 8)

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Denim Movements & Teen Spirit


“ Each

movement in its own way was a reaction to the failed utopianism of the counterculture, which had been quashed time and time again by gloomy reality.

�

(Sullivan, 2006, p.151)

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years, plain blue jeans were the accepted uniform for teenagers, “ For but when their elders adopted denim for themselves, youngsters began

distinguishing their own garb. In line with the handicraft revival, they began to paint, embroider, bead, and stud their denims.

(Beagle, 1975)

Denim jeans have been a wardrobe staple since the 80s and have been a part of many different movements within fashion and its subcultures since their creation in the late 1800s. The movement of free love and world peace in the late 60’s to 70’s gave birth to the first type of purposefully distressed denim as the young hippie started to emerge in the hope of breaking free from the previous social constraints that faced their parents. Teenagers and young adults began to customise denim in the comfort of their own homes, painting it, placing patches all over their bell bottoms and embroidering anything they owned made out of denim in order to fight consumerism.

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(fig. 9)


However, in many ways punks were the real pioneers of distressed denim and this was linked with their spirit of anarchy and the fact that they were rallying in support of the working class people that would have originally worn distressed denim. Everything about the punk’s image screamed rebellion and gave a message of disassociation with their environment, in a lot of ways these teenagers didn’t want to accept their own reality. A resentment towards the government and the society they lived in was woven into each and every fibre of their being but also into each and every fibre of their clothing. Most of the punk’s wardrobe consisted of denim and leather and all of it was shredded, torn, scuffed, covered in patches and pierced with badges and safety pins. They had taken the idea of customising a garment in order to make it look beautiful and turned it on its head to create clothing that looked destroyed and this reflected the way punks felt about what the government were trying to do to everyone around them. After the anarchy fuelled shredded denim of the punk came the birth of grunge. Distressing your denim was another expression of feeling with the youth of this era but it was an even more personal matter than it had been with their predecessors. Grunge fashion, music, culture was more of an outlet for teens to express their angst from their own complication-fuelled pubescent lives. Teenagers became influenced by the artists, musicians and film stars they were being exposed to and perhaps the most iconic one of the nineties was Kurt Cobain. Cobain was a new type of style icon; he was ‘… the antithesis of the macho American man…’ (Frank, 2014). Cobain led the way for thousands of teenagers to embrace the fact that they were misfits but also allowed them to acknowledge that they weren’t the only ones that felt that way. His slouchy, thrift-shop style of dressing that rebelled against the emerging trend of a ‘body-conscious silhouette’ (Frank, 2014) is still inspiring designers such as Hedi Slimane today.

(fig. 10)

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“I

want to die with my blue jeans on.

- Andy Warhol

(2006, p. 13)

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The Big Idea

After conducting an extensive amount of research I decided on an idea for a campaign that would be one that’d provide an element of surprise and shock to those that came across it.

There is a real need to acknowledge that parts of the world are being destroyed under the toll of the fashion industry. This has been concerning me ever since I read about the town of Xintang in the Guangdon province of China, which has also been referred to as ‘the denim capital of the world’ (Guang and Mingzhuo, 2013).

My initial idea was of swing tags that would provide graphic images from Xintang’s denim manufacturing process and the effects that its had on the town and its inhabitants. What I wanted to achieve would be that the tags would be similar to cigarette boxes and the graphic messages they project to the consumer. The tags would then be marketed on jeans found in high street shops as they are the main culprits of this fast fashion catastrophe.

However, just marketing swing tags would not be a sufficient statement for what I feel is a huge problem that the industry has created. I also had strong doubts that high street stores would accept this type of marketing that would be going against their own product and company name. This is why I decided to create a campaign involving Greenpeace and Nudie Jeans.

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(Swing Tag Mock Up, 2016, Own Work)

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Nudie Jeans have been a brand that I have previously discussed and I chose them due to their heavy emphasis on wanting to be a part of the drive to ethically source all of their materials.

The campaign would include a window display in one of Nudie Jeans’ flagship stores, perhaps London, and this would be of a sheet of denim with various rips and holes in it that would be just big enough to look through. The unconventional display would entice customers to take a closer look which would then result in them looking through the denim and seeing small screens full of video footage showcasing the effects the denim production in Xintang has had on the town and its environment. Due to the fact I was so drawn to the idea of marketing a swing tag like you would a cigarette box I decided that I would still incorporate it. However, the swing tag would be huge and it would dangle from the side of the shop and sit outside, making it something the eye couldn’t miss. The benefits of the campaign would be that Greenpeace would be able to raise awareness about an issue they have been investigating for years and it would give Nudie Jeans more publicity as a brand that is ethically conscious and wants to make a difference within the fashion industry in regards to consumerism and its effects on the environment. The public would see Nudie Jeans as a brand that are trustworthy and eco friendly and would therefore be more likely to buy from them to feel better about their personal consumer habits. (fig. 11)

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(Big Idea Mock Up, 2016, Own Work)

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Artica (2014) ‘Nudie jeans ephemeral installation and window display by colapso, Barcelona’, Retail Design Blog, 28 April. Available at: http://retaildesignblog.net/2014/04/28/nudie-jeans-ephemeral-installation-and-window-displayby-colapso-barcelona/ (Accessed: 30 December 2015). Artica (2015) ‘3×1 store by Scott Morrison, Southampton – New York’, Retail Design Blog, 8 June. Available at: http://retaildesignblog.net/2015/06/08/3x1-denim-store-by-scott-morrison-southampton-new-york/ (Accessed: 30 December 2015). Beagle, P. S. (1975) American denim: A new folk art. Edited by Tony Lane and Richard M. Owens. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

REFFERENCES

Frank, A. (2014) Why Kurt Cobain was One of the most influential style icons of our times http://www.vogue. com/868923/kurt-cobain-legacy-of-grunge-in-fashion/. 8 April. Trotman, S. (2016) ‘This is Denim by Topman celebrates the democracy of jeans’, WGSN Insider, 12 January. Available at: http://www.wgsn.com/blogs/topman-launch-new-denim-collection-denim/ (Accessed: 18 December 2015). Guang, L. and Mingzhuo, J. (2013) The denim capital of the world: So polluted you can’t give the houses away. Available at: https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6283-The-denim-capital-of-the-world-so-pollutedyou-can-t-give-the-houses-away (Accessed: 10 January 2016). Sullivan, J. (2006) Jeans: A cultural history of an American icon. New York, NY: Gotham Books. Warhol, A. (2006) The philosophy of Andy Warhol: (from A to B and back again). Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Images Byron Spencer, (2015), Too Young [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.oystermag.com/oyster-fashion-too-youngshot-by-byron-spencer [Accessed 06 January 16]. (fig. 5), (fig. 7) Ben Toms , (2015), This Is Denim [ONLINE]. Available at: http://themagazine.topman.com/the-denim-issue [Accessed 21 December 15]. (fig. 1) Eric Striffler, (2015), 3×1 Denim Store by Scott Morrison [ONLINE]. Available at: http://retaildesignblog. net/2015/06/08/3x1-denim-store-by-scott-morrison-southampton-new-york/ [Accessed 29 December 15]. (fig. 4) Georges Antoni, (2015), Waste Not, Want Not [ONLINE]. Available at: http://visualoptimism.blogspot.co.il/2015/06/ waste-not-want-not-madison-stubbington.html [Accessed 19 January 16]. (Inside Cover Image) Giampaolo Sgura, (2015), A/W 2015 [ONLINE]. Available at: http://theimpression.com/replay-fall-2015-campaign/ [Accessed 21 December 15]. (fig. 2) Lu Guang, (2013), Unknown [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.greenpeace.de/detoxdiscounter [Accessed 18 January 16]. (fig. 11) Maud-Sophie, (2014), Nudie Jeans Ephemeral Installation and Window Display [ONLINE]. Available at: http:// theimpression.com/replay-fall-2015-campaign/ [Accessed 29 December 15]. (fig. 3) Niall O’brien, (2010), Superheroes [ONLINE]. Available at: http://niallobrien.co.uk/project/superheroes/#0 [Accessed 05 January 16]. (fig. 8) Niall O’brien, (2010), Halloween [ONLINE]. Available at: http://niallobrien.co.uk/project/halloween/#6 [Accessed 05 January 16]. (fig. 10) Richard Bush, (2015), Starlet Natalie Westling takes to the streets of London [ONLINE]. Available at: https://i-d.vice. com/en_gb/article/starlet-natalie-westling-takes-to-the-streets-of-london [Accessed 15 January 16]. (Intro to The Big Idea), (References Facing Page)

Word Count: 2,733

Sam Haskins, (Uknown), Bombshells in Blue Jeans [ONLINE]. Available at: http://stonedimmaculatevintage. blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/bombshells-blue-jeans-by-sam-haskins.html [Accessed 07 January 16]. (fig. 9)

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Shirley Yu, (2014), Ximon Lee Graduate Collection [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.ximonlee.com/ graduatelookbook/rymzvm0jrubxcqeu5kwhlcjw5djoqx [Accessed 19 January 16]. (Front Cover Image) Unknown, (1973), Unknown [ONLINE]. Available at: http://fashionfollower.com/1970s-vintage-denim-style/ [Accessed 06 January 16]. (fig. 6) Yukimi Moromisato, (2015), HÉROES [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.vfiles.com/media/455917 [Accessed 19 January 16]. (Contents Facing Page)


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Faaria Khan N0567783 Fashion Communication & Promotion Nottingham Trent University 25


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