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. With Hard work redeems
Posted Under: Consumer Behavior,Industry and stuff,Things/Thinking
It occurs to me that I have an easy rejoinder to those who continue to insist that the last ten years have shown a notable uptick in consumer savvy. That rejoinder is: “Premium denim.”
But maybe I’m wrong about that. Interested as I was to see this brief photo essay of a Kentucky denim factory that “specializes in distressing high-end jeans,” I was really interested in what the photographer said about his visit:
I used to scoff at paying a premium for jeans that come with holes in them already. Then I saw just how much work goes into distressing jeans, and I realized that these people are artists.
Hm. Well, I’m sure they do work very hard and have lots of skill and so on. But is the idea that seeing a lot of work go into something you thought was kind of pointless thereby redeems that thing? Would you find Crocs (or whatever it is you find absurd in consumer culture) more appealing if you knew they were really hard to make?
If this question interests you, don’t miss the spirited debate in the comments appended to the photo essay.
Via BB.
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
Rob,
To answer your question about Crocs: I wear them because they are comfortable and cheap (and I’m a dork). If they were hard to make and pricey they wouldn’t have to same appeal. (Unless the little holes were punched out by artisan monks in a small mountain village in a far off land – then I’d pay a lot more).
Rob, I’m not sure you’ve covered this in the past, but another “trend” that has been growing pretty steadily over the past couple of years is the popularity of “raw” denim. Many people like to document the eventual “wear” of the jeans especially with photographs that post online, showing how they evolve over time. For the most part, this group of people obviously sees predistressing as kind of cheating for lack of a better term. also, many people will pay as much if not more for quality denim that has not been worn in so as to produce worn effects personalized to them..
for example:
Sidney Lo had documented himself wearing the same pair of jeans every day for an entire year:
http://hypebeast.com/2008/03/what-are-you-wearing-today-year-long-project-sidney-lo/
I was as excited as the next citizen of blogland to see those photos when they made the rounds, but then I spotted the crazy chandelier in one of the pictures. Growing up in North Carolina and visiting my friends’ family’s textile company, I can attest that I never saw a jeans mill with a chandelier.
However documentary in nature these photos are, they’re just one more facet of the whole artisanal, “authentic workwear” anti-trend that has metastasized into an actual trend. cf. Freeman’s on the LES, and the fetishization of old school American brands like Filson, Pendleton, Duluth Trading, LL Bean, etc.
Those jeans are being produced and distressed in a self-consciously industrial [or “industrial”] environment; which makes me wonder to what extent the photos are essentially, what’s the word I’m looking for here? Murketing.
Ryan: Thanks for that Sidney Lo link, interesting.
Greg: That’s a good point, you’ve definitely made me wonder. I don’t think they name a particular brand, though, so that would undercut the murketing effectiveness. But I definitely see your point.