Art Journal

Back in the day, my mother was a diehard fan of Sears & Roebuck and loved to dress me in coordinated polyester "sets" that included a striped knit shirt and matching shorts or pants with sewn-in creases down the center. My mother loved them because they were cheap, wrinkle-free, and looked "nice and neat."  I hated them because they were "faggy," which was 70s lingo for hopelessly nerdy.

When I was in middle school I was tall for my age and the sets no longer came in my size. Finally I'd get to wear jeans like everyone else. Well, not quite like everyone else. The inexpensive Sears jeans my mom bought came in two varieties: all cotton ones that shrunk like crazy and immediately became high-waters on my long legs and polyester-blend jeans that looked and felt weird.

When I was a freshman in high school, I somehow managed to scrape together enough money to buy myself a pair of Levis. This was back when jeans (or dungarees, as my dad called them) were crafted from heavy denim that was so stiff it was almost crunchy. The indigo dye that gave the jeans their trademark color would turn the water blue when you laundered them.  It took years of washing and wearing for a pair of jeans to fade, soften, and shape to your body. A broken-in pair of jeans was a prized possession, a piece of history, something you could not just go out and replace.

This is part of the reason I revered my first pair of Levis, the only name-brand item of clothing I owned. Back then, girls bought boys jeans, and my lanky figure slipped easily into a 28 x 32 inch pair. I wore those jeans every day and often washed them by hand rather than let them disappear into the laundry and be MIA for days.

The longer I wore my jeans, the softer and more frayed they became. The first hole came through on the right knee and I patched it myself, adding decorative stitching around the edge of the patch with green embroidery floss.

When the denim on the thighs became thin, I watched the blue threads disappear and the white threads of the fabric's warp form a ladder across the hole. My mother was mortified. She tried to replace my well worn jeans with "nice and neat" ones from Sears & Roebuck, and I wouldn't have it. I saved my money and got a second pair of Levis my sophomore year. 

For years I wore them to school every day and out with my boyfriend on weekends. I hiked, climbed, and sat on rocks in them by the river. I paired them with peasant blouses, button-down shirts, or Shetland sweaters and went to ballgames, dances, pubs, and movies. I leaned on parked cars under the stars on summer nights, watched the heat lightning, and imagined myself living in a cabin in the woods,  hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, becoming a writer or maybe a scientist. I fell in love and had my heart broken. I wrote, read, retreated into music, fell in love again, and learned that relationships are complicated.

I went off to college with my dreams and my jeans packed in a plaid suitcase. Predictably, everything changed in my life and in fashion. The 80s brought designer jeans, baggy jeans, and acid-washed denim, the 90s brought back flares and hip huggers, and in the last few years it's been all about skinny jeans. The decades have tumbled by. My youth, my health, and my hopefulness have faded and frayed. I'm now a middle-aged woman in a small city hidden from the stars I once wished upon. In my mind, if not in reality, I remain a slender girl in worn-out Levis with big plans unfolding under a wide open sky.

Comments

[RD]

This art piece is simply gorgeous. I see your words are back--yeah! I didn't own any Levi's in high school, but I remember wearing lots of corduroy and Earth shoes. In college I wore a size 3 pair of Calvin Klein jeans. That was the last time I ever wore a size 3, and I still mourn for them.

[Tera]

I love this. I also have a Levi's story to tell. Those little things shape the big things, for sure. Too bad I can't wear a 28 anymore...definitely bigger things :-)

[Juli Ryan]

What a lovely post. You are lucky you had the right body for Levis. They never fit me!

[V-Grrrl]

Juli,

Note I didn't say they fit me well or looked good, I just felt connected to them. Truthfully, I don't think they were figure flattering, but that wasn't on my radar then.

Tera,

I could probably wear a pair of 28s on one thigh now, ha ha ha.

RD,

Yes, my words are back! I, too, wore earth shoes. My first ugly shoes, ha ha ha. Many more to follow. I never had a pair of Calvin Kleins. When I finally bought a pair of designer jeans in the 80s, I went for the less expensive Gloria Vanderbilts. Now those jeans looked good on me. I also loved Zena jeans.

[Shirl Grrrl]

Well said. Love every bit of it! So this is why you were so "quiet" yesterday! :-)

[mamatulip]

This is one of my favourite posts of yours! I love it, and the memories it conjured up for me (including washing a brand-new pair of Levi's and putting them in the dryer with a bunch of ROCKS, to my mother's horror. My friends told me that was how you broke them in!)

[Slow Panic]

I remember my first pair of Levi's -- somewhere around 8th grade (my Mom loved the Sears clothes too). They were boys. I was all skinny and slipped right into them.

I think I need to put a pair back on, even if it's just in my mind and get back to that place with wide open spaces and dreams that can come true.

[Kim Nelson]

Spellbinding! This piece is ideally written. Captured me right up front and held me hostage as I soared through the years with you. Brilliant, V, brilliant.

[Joyce Ellen Davis]

Sheesh. We had the same mother....

[Nance]

Oh, jeans. Icons of our youth! In my late thirties, I had a pair of my husband's that he wore much earlier in his college days. They were like yours: frayed, holey, and gorgeously broken in. I adored them. I had to lay them away when I lost a great deal of weight, and I ended up giving them to a student of mine. Ryan was a new generation hippie, a poet, artist, dreamer, and wanderer. He was also down on his luck and without a home due to some unpleasant circumstances. I brought him the jeans and he fell in love with them. I know they found a great home.

[Di]

I loved this one so much. I never had any brand jeans, ever and so your story of so lovingly caring for and shaping your jeans was kind of like a surrogate experience for me.

[Chris]

Wonderful. I had Danskin sets in the 70s, and had to save my babysitting money in the 80s for special jeans. Like you, I stuck with Levi's -- 501s. Heat lightning... what memories.

[Ern]

I loved the imagery in this piece. Took me there with you.