Wearing jeans is not in Andy Hirst’s genes

Oct 1 2009 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

They laughed at me, not with me.

And so the challenge was thrown down to get me back into jeans.

I was marched off to House of Fraser with Hilarie who did her very best to turn me into some kind of ageing James Dean, then a sailor looking for his yacht and finally a man about town in a checked shirt. Mmmm casual.

As for the jeans, I found something else I didn’t like about them – the fly had buttons instead of a zip.

It sure was fiddly to do them up – but that’s denim for you. It was tough enough in the well-lit changing rooms. It’d be even more of a struggle after a few drinks in a nightclub.

Not, of course, that I go to nightclubs, but I’m certainly not telling the editorial conference that.

And so, after trying on jeans ranging from the ‘cheap’, as Hilarie put it, at £45 up to the far more expensive pair, had I been converted to the ways of the denim?

Sadly for retailers everywhere, no.

Yet I remain open-minded and may try another pair on in 20 years’ time.

Cotton denim jeans were worn by Italian sailors as long ago as the 17th century and may owe their name to the fact that the Genoa-based navy of the time wore them as part of their uniform. The word denim probably came from Nîmes, the French town famous for making the cloth.

The original distressed jeans were those washed in the sea by sailors – a combination of salty water and sunshine bleached the fabric.

Denim used to be dyed with natural indigo but is now more commonly coloured with cheaper, longer-lasting artificial dyes.

Levi Strauss, one of the best known jeans labels, was founded in the 1850s by a German immigrant of that name (he was originally called Loeb but changed his name to Levi) who went to California hoping to make his fortune by kitting out the Californian gold rush miners and their families.

Denim jeans remained work wear until the 1950s when American teenagers adopted them as a symbol of rebellion and youth. The rest, as they say, is history.

Jeans for Genes, a fund-raising day launched 14 years ago, supports 10 charities working with children and families affected by genetic disorders. Check out www.jeansforgenes.com