Andy Warhol on Denim

“I wish I could invent something like jeans, something people would remember, something for everybody” -Andy Warhol

Stuart Semples Denim Art in Selfridges

October 17 - November 15

Denim is a way to externalize and broadcast our cultural choices, though its rich and varied history, and constantly evolving heritage it has always illustrated sub-cultural shifts. Jeans are undoubtedly one of the finest inventions of the modern age; they have given us images of Elvis shaking his hips, James dean, Bruce Springsteen, hippies, anarchistic punks and high fashion glamour. Most of all they have established themselves as a perfect second skin for billions of people worldwide.

I’m interested in how this second skin protects and broadcasts. How it reflects our identity and cultural tastes. Whether flared, distressed or just perfectly fitting, they can tell us so much about the body within them and ultimately the mind of their owner. I’m fascinated by the way this interacts with our outer environment, the way our bodies move and what they come in contact with changes these garments to be unique in their wears and tears, blemishes and stretches.

I want to take denim to an alternate place in a parallel future, where pop culture has faded, its symbols a messy collision. The shared language we have in mass culture’s celebrities, pop songs and images has faded and no longer provides our point of reference with each other. So we stand atomized, clad in denim. Our brands on a pedestal as the loving parents who understand our inner needs, in them we trust the transition from inner identity to outer communication. If idolatry is the worship of any cult idea or image other than God…

WELCOME TO MY CULT OF DENIM"

- Stuart Semple 1st August 2008

S

Artist-Lisa Bruce

LISA BRICE
by Sue Williamson (October, 2007)

The first artbio on Lisa Brice appeared online in January 1999. In a new programme, ArtThrob will produce updated artbios on artists as the occasion arises.

MODUS OPERANDI

Directly engaging with sensitive subjects, Lisa Brice has used her extraordinary draughtsmanship skills and a wide variety of media to make a series of highly charged works which have established her as a leading figure of her generation.

Eight years ago, Brice was known for her constructed artworks combining found objects, or domestic materials such as linoleum, with steel to make wall artworks, installations and sculptural pieces. These iconic works explored the uncomfortable subject, in a newly democratic South Africa, of suburban fear as a rising crime rate impinged on domestic security. Jet Master Couple 1997, part of a larger, gallery-sized installation of padded panels called Staying Alive, was a good example of this period, in which banal images of suburbanites frolic unaware of the hooded figures in the background.

In recent years, Brice, who now works between London, Trinidad and Cape Town, has returned to painting and its linked discipline of drawing, a move which together with an increasing assurance in the work, has proved a critical success. 'Night Vision', her first painting solo show at the Goodman Johannesburg in 2006, used a reduced palette of greyed-out greens and blues to focus on the uncertainties of childhood, and was a sellout.

Taking on the theme of the awkward urgencies of adolescent lust and love, Brice's new work negotiates with authority the difficult terrain between spontaneous drawing and fully realised figure painting.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

'My move from painting to constructed work after art school came about through my frustrations with what I felt were limitations of the medium. With a return to painting in the last few years I have became aware of the infinite possibilities within its constraints and feel challenged to work within these limitations.

'I am beginning to push the boundaries of the traditional within the medium, using the surface, like denim, as having "meaning"... suggesting something other than merely a surface to hold paint - in the same way as I began to paint on linoleum, mirrors, curtaining at Michaelis (art school).

'I cull images from a variety of media sources, photography and film as well as using personal photos. I am attracted to the idea of repetition, chasing that high, stories told and retold. A drug high once experienced is sought out again and again, and the same urge can be applied to a state of emotional high.

'In painting, I crave the rush of getting something right, of the work coming together. There are an infinite number of ways this may be achieved with the same image (but not within the same painting). I want to try them all. There is a parallel to the repeated actions of chasing an emotional high through drugs, or love.

'I struggle at times with the romanticism of painting and with the subject of love at a time of so much war and tragedy - but of course how can one not... it is ammunition and an armour in dark times.

'Whilst Roland Barthes suggests "photography has been, and still is tormented by the ghost of painting", for me, I feel it moves in the opposite direction - my painting process is "tormented" in a sense by photography. It is a real push and pull with the photographic source material as starting point - the most successful works in my opinion are those in which a real departure is made and something else happens - a kind of alchemy I guess.'

Denimology-Andy Knight

Always hunting for the perfect pair of jeans?

Denimology has the answers on up and coming designs, images of celebrity's snapped in their casuals and even gives tips on sourcing vintage denim. Its world wide success and Denimology has become the number one denim blog. I met the creator Andy Knight at the Angelic pub in Islington.

Knights constant challenge is to keep up to date with fresh news entertaining the 30,000 people that visit on a dailey basis. There are over 2000 posts and 10,000 images on Denimology and 100's of images, a visit to the sight guarantees inspiration in choice of brand, style and cut.
This week’s news includes Levi's Unbutton Your Beast a global marketing campaign, in return Levi’s made a special online message for Denimology.

Andy has the knack of combining celebrity gossip with fashion in a fly on wall way. This week he commentates that ‘Baggy boyfriend-style jeans have been showing up all over Hollywood recently and Lindsay Lohan has gone one step further by getting herself an pair of repro vintage Levi's 501s,’

In which Andy writes’ jeans don't come anymore classic than this’ and admits that his love for Levi’s in the 80’s ignited his fascination for denim. Andy also posts sit down interviews with up and coming designers. He believes it’s tough to get to the top of the denim market but is keen to promote new talent.

http://www.Denimology.com

Denim Exhibition on Carnaby Street

Denim ID involves a hub of designers, artists, fashion students and musicians to create new trends for denim

Carnaby Street is the centre of youth fashion and hosts all the leading denim brands sold worldwide.The exhibition will take place this year and is set to become the event people will talk about. Concerning itself with the past, present and the future of denim, the exhibition will also provide priceless information about future trends, because we will ask tomorrow’s designers, stylists and wearers about their ideas and attitudes.

Why denim? Because denim is cultural phenomena, a fabric and an idea which instigated massive changes in the structure of the fashion industry and continues to lend its magic and to encapsulate the dreams and aspirations of the wearer. Denim has broken through every social barrier, gender, race, and culture. It can be said to have democratised fashion itself. We as individuals are defined by our denims, each brand and model having an identifiable and inbuilt set of values, a personality. Denim has as many facets as a diamond. Denim is worn with confidence and carries with it a set of values recognised wherever it is worn.

What is Denim ID?
It is an interactive fashion exhibition where the audience is invited to become part of the exhibition. Fashion, art and street culture will collide and images illustrate the past, present and future of denim.The people who help create the ideas and attitudes which evolve denim will be invited to walk into the exhibition and to look at iconic images created around denim during the last fifty years, but presented in new and exciting ways.The past theme is nostalgic and includes advertising images long forgotten divided into decades of unforgettable advertisements and posters and significant quotes which will provide a hall of fame for denim.Cool Seekers will roam Carnaby Street, capturing today’s images, to join the great images of the past in the exhibition.Tomorrow’s theme The exhibition will have a high interactive element and be designed to encourage and invite ideas and input from people at the cutting edge of fashion – those who have attitude and imagination enough to become tomorrow’s denim enthusiasts. Denim fashions bubble up from the street and these reinventions of denim can be captured in this live event through photography and the involvement of the fashion hungry youth market found on Carnaby Street.Denim prospers, taking on the contours and individuality of the wearer, it promotes universalism whilst at the same time individual expression. Denim is embodied in our society as classless; it is widespread amongst different sub-cultures and mainstream groups. It is worn internationally by the rich and famous to voice a streetwise attitude and paradoxically by the poor, who can bolster their status by wearing the same denim as the rich and famous. It is sexy, rebellious, tough, macho and feminine all at once and embodies values that suit everyone. As the generations have passes this fabric and its messages, became whatever the wearer wished it to be.











The question is, how do you wear yours?

Black Levi’s 1982

In 1982 Levi’s launched the black jean, desperate to revive the status of the jean. The black jean was marketed as smart, cool and slightly against the grain. Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty designed two posters to market the concept of the black jean.

“Levi’s backed the Roxy Music tour, photographed them and got them in a framed pair of 501’s. What they do is…. that they would – you know a lot of these would be just in store; they have a jean they call the champ so they do something around it, they had various labels, they had the 501 label and they had the silver tab label, it was all very confusing.” (Hegarty Interview).

In the Jeans by Roxy Music poster set in 1982, the British group Roxy Music is photographed next to the black jean with the title ‘Roxy Music 1982’. Intriguingly they are not wearing the product. Instead they are posing on a white-sheeted background which has been framed. Another frame contains a pair of black Levi’s titled ‘Black Levi’s 1982’. Both the band and the jean are being presented as significant pieces of art, classically British. The author Huygen explains the relationship between education and music, art and fashion:

“In Britain the street (pop music and fashion) and the fine arts are inextricably linked, the musicians David Bowie and Brian Ferry were educated at Newcastle University where they studied under the artist Richard Hamilton. Music which has been the expressive outlet of Britain’s youth brought the street and art school together.” (Huygen, 1989: 141)

Art and design colleges also brought the advertising and music worlds together. The renowned graphic designer Peter Saville also studied at Newcastle. He was a friend of Brian Ferry’s, an association which helped to launch Saville’s career in graphic design. Saville also designed album covers for Roxy Music.

Black Levi’s reinvented the jean in the 1980s, giving the product fresh consumer appeal. The black dye gave the jean a casual yet smart appearance, making it seem more like a trouser than a jean. Roxy Music had established themselves during the 1970s and had a prestigious reputation in Britain at the time this campaign was launched, appealing to the mass market, and to an older generation that had grown up with and bought Levi’s in the 1970s. The black Levi advertising featuring Roxy Music relates denim to a high culture, placing the product with high fashion, art and music. The advert also advertises a mature wearer of denim, teenagers that have grown up with the brand and eventually choose to wear the sophisticated black jean.

Wranglers Stretched Covers Campaign in 1982

In the early 1980s Wranglers produced stretched denim, aimed specifically at women as a fashion jean. Silhouettes, colours and details became more important aspects of design. Wrangler created stretch denim by adding 10% Lycra into the denim to make stretch jeans especially for women, and to give the jean more movement. Women could then go down a size, pull them on and the jeans would stretch to give a tight fit.

“The original Wrangler jeans patch was fairly large and looked almost plastic, which was part of its charm. In an early example of conscious marketing to women, the patch now reduced in size and looked like real leather. Stretch denim.” (ibid).


Denim fabric made with a percentage of elastan fibre in the weft, giving it a body-fitting stretch quality (-+Lycra). The first mill to produce this special denim in Europe was Legler, in the late 1970s, though initially without great success. One of the earliest stretch jeans lines was produced in Hong Kong by Peter Golding, using Japanese stretch denim. In 1980 Levi's launched in the UK the first complete women’s wear program of stretch jeans with the help of Lauffenmiihle's Elastenim. This initiative met with very good response in Great Britain and other brands soon followed suit. Marks & Spencer (UK) was the next to bring stretch denim to the consumer, this time using a Legler range. And the following years in Europe saw a boom in the stretch phenomenon, notably with France's Buffalo and, around 1983/1984, Germany's Mustang (http://www.alrashidmall.com/clothing4.htm)

“The £5 million poster campaign for stretch denim was aimed specifically at women. It was displayed in shops but also as a forty-eight sheet poster campaign. The posters, which measured 20 feet by 40 feet, were again produced by Maiden and the agency Collett Dickenson Pearce. The proof, which measures 15 inches by 30 inches, can be seen in the Northampton poster collection and serves as a miniature version of the original poster.

The entire set was made of denim; the rubber plant and even the telephone were covered in stretch denim. The campaign lasted for three months, with a month for each poster, and the posters appeared on eighteen thousand poster sites across the UK. As part of the same campaign, a second poster was produced featuring a surreal image which illustrates a prism breaking into images of different products.” (ibid)

The posters have a matt finish to them and were displayed in shops at the point of sale. Again, the poster in the collection is the proof that was provided as art work to the printers. The phone box poster is in yellow and blue, the Wrangler colours. It was designed by a student from West Nottinghamshire College in open competition, and part of the prize was to see a poster produced. The British telephone box is a part of street culture, loved, respected and classless, like denim.

What’s Going On Wrangler?

The What’s Going On? poster campaign ran alongside a television commercial which won a Cinema Gold award. The commercial, the concept for which was created by agency ,, made use of groundbreaking visual techniques to follow a day in the life of a pair of jeans. The soundtrack music, which was also titled ‘What’s going on?’ was written by Godley and Creme, one half of the pop group 10CC. Developed in a series of collage shots, the advertisement shows a picture of a family torn in two by the leading character, a young girl. She walks down the street in time to the music ‘What’s going on, what’s going on?’ The advert characterises adults such as parents and virtually everyone else as mundane and adults are all played by shop-style dummies. Dummy Mum and dummy Dad sit watching television and they are frozen, brain-dead statues. The main female character rips up a photo of her parents and smirks, surrounded by a gang of friends, who cheer her on.

The advert expressly separates the teenager from the stony, adult generation; adults are expressionless statues while teenagers move, have expressions and live happily in a teenage gang. The teenagers wear Wrangler T-shirts and jeans; they share similar hairstyles, they have their own culture, a new young, determined to ensure they express what they think. The styling of the characters in this campaign is typical of the pop-punk subculture, and echoes that of cult celebrities of the time, such as Madonna, in the film Desperately Seeking Susan. The poster image, which is made up of a montage design, conjures up three themes immediately; music, lifestyle and attitude. First of all the typography and ripped lay out is redolent of punk, particularly the album cover of Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.

The montage also makes a profile of the customer, we can imagine the teenage girl, know what music she listens to, and come to understand something about her attitude and lifestyle.

“Collett Dickenson Pierce claimed that after the commercial ran, research showed that young people were more aware of Wrangler than of any other. The poster was an extension of the point of sale campaign in 1982 and ran for two years. The music won an award for the best commercial music and the campaign achieved three awards for the music, art direction and original concept. The second What’s Going On? poster was filmed in North London and took seven days to complete. The set was a swimming pool with a large face on its surface.

A young girl swimmer dived into the pool, and it appeared she was diving through the image of the face. The dive was perfect but she had to create a splash rather than a perfect dive. There was no computer technology to enhance the effect. All items on the poster were worn in the commercial and the images on the poster were part of the same shoot.” (ibid)

In 1985 Wrangler advertised in FHM and also in other youth magazines such as The Face. The advertisement featured a male model dressed like a human robot, which relates back to the company’s award winning What’s Going On? Campaign.

At this point a decision was taken to start using a new logo across Europe, printed on posters and T-shirts In place of the brand name, Wrangler. The Marketing department at Wrangler felt the ‘W’ logo was too tightly focused for the product range and so Dilley organized a committee with German, French and Italian graphic designers – a pan-European effort. The short listed designs included work by both a German graphic designer and a fashion designer from London. The final logo design was chosen from the London designer at a fraction of the cost the new logo. This change was less successful. It appeared to confused costumers used to the ‘W. logo and to the blue and yellow corporate colours.

The message of What’s Going On?was simple, unchallenging, and cartoon like; an unreal world but with real problems, filled with stereotypical characters. The message was rebellion, which separated youth from adults, but there was no spectrum to the emotion it aroused. You either bought the simple message, or you didn’t. This was the first, tentative reference to street culture. The characters were ill researched, and stereotypical, a parent’s view of teenagers, teenagers with nothing new to say.

The Grease Campaign for Wrangler 1979

In 1979 the film Grease arrived in the UK and point of sale posters were launched at the same time. Before the launch the producers of Grease had been looking for partners who would get involved with promotion of the film. Wrangler signed for the rights to use Grease on their posters and also produced a radio campaign which had conversations between Rickenbacker and Mr. Wrangler talking about Grease and the Wrangler product. This was recorded onto promotional cassettes which had songs from the musical alongside Rickenbacker and Mr. Wrangler’s conversations. While Wrangler organised Grease nights around the country the posters, tapes and badges were distributed as promotional giveaways. A little detective work revealed The Grease posters were printed in Nottingham at Hawthornes, who in turn made an introduction for me to Robin Dilley.

“The posters were printed as a set of four, so they were easier to print out. The photographs were the work of Terence Donovan, who was more used to shooting fashion than denim, and were shot on Hampstead Heath in London. The posters recreated scenes from the musical, with the Wrangler logo on one side of the poster and the Grease logo on the other, and were hugely detailed, aiming to recreate the clutter of the original screenplay. For this reason, and because Donovan was more used to photographing pristine couture fabrics rather than comfortable, worn-looking and non-ironed denim, the whole shoot took between four and five days.” (ibid)


Grease was the biggest selling album of all time and the seven tracks chosen by Dilley on the Wrangler promotional tape all went to number one in the British charts. The campaign established the Grease phenomenon alongside Wrangler, and ensured that the people associated with the film wore Wrangler. The Wrangler product, teamed up with the Grease image was a winning combination; the posters reflect the fun and youthfulness of the movie and have a strong American theme.

My comment on the Grease campaign, is that, although successful because it brought about increasing sales of Wrangler jeans, it offered nothing new to the young British teenager. The same American message, refreshingly not traditionally western or rural, was directed at an imitation, make-believe small town American, audience. The British audience was simply asked to join the Grease celebration, but not to bring anything of themselves to the party. The market was young, but faceless, simply invitees to the celebration that Wrangler hosted. The message was aimed tightly at the teenager, but within that market, it was aimed indiscriminately at the mass teen market. Anyone over 20 years old was definitely not invited to join in. The smart move was yet to come, with the What’s Going On? campaign by leading London agency Collett Dickenson Pearce, which created a specific message to a British, urban audience, supported by British music and branded T shirts aimed tightly at the British teen market. The message was overtly rebellious and anti establishment, but at least it was British.

The Talented Mr. Wrangler.

Wrangler promoted themselves to the mass market with a series of integrated television, poster and radio advertisements based on the fictional character Mr. Wrangler, whose face we never see. This was possibly inspired by a popular character in the Cadbury’s Milk Tray advertisement of the time, whose face we never saw, and whose theme was “Because the lady loves Milk Tray”

Robin continued “In 1979, the first campaign, called “Mr. Wrangler”, appeared in posters on bus shelters.

“We chose bus shelters because people waiting for a bus stand there with nothing to look at except our poster, and each other. Because they want to avoid eye contact with strangers, they study our posters. The first poster featured an illustration of the Wrangler letters, carved into a cliff in the Rockies, and this campaign coincided with a supporting radio advertisement featuring two fictional characters, Mr. Wrangler, who is dismissive and domineering, and his bungling subordinate, Rickenbacker whose name was taken from a real-life World War Two fighter pilot. The characters’ fictional voices were recorded in American accents with the loud sound of the helicopter propellers. Rickenbacker remarks: ‘To show how big your name is we’ve carved it in rock’. The helicopter rises and Wrangler letters are unveiled, 1,000 feet high in the air, in the Rockies. Mr. Wrangler replies: ‘I thought there was one L in Wrangler.” (ibid)

Mr. Wrangler was sophisticated, respected by men and by women, whilst Rickenbacker tries to impress Mr. Wrangler with his ideas, but always made mistakes. The graphic concept, together with the location and the set and the American voices are heavily American, but the poster was actually aimed at the British market. The Mr. Wrangler campaign successfully persuaded the mass market to buy Wrangler jeans. This successful poster led on to a second campaign, still featuring Mr. Wrangler and Rickenbacker. The second series of posters also appeared on bus shelters.

Interview with Sir John Hegarty

Launderette, first shown on Boxing Day 1985, and later Bath which featured a different male model soaking his jeans in the bath while wearing them, aimed to spearhead the company’s recovery. The soundtracks also soared in popularity. In one week in 1986, two Levi’s 501 soundtracks, Ben E King’s Stand by Me and Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves a Woman were both in the British charts. The all-important 16-24 year old male was the target for the advertisements. The campaign was meticulously planned. In just 12 months after the official re-launch of Levi’s 501 jeans, sales rose by 700%, doubling yet again the year after (Mort, 1996; 12). Sales were staggering, even though 501s were the most expensive jeans Levi’s produced. Factories struggled to cope with the demand, staff worked 12 hour shifts of overtime (Mort, 1996; 12). The basic design dated from 1873 but a TV commercial made 501s essential wear for 1980s Britain, along with boxer shorts, which became indispensable apparel for the new rebel, of whatever age. Levi’s jeans had entered other settings, becoming acceptable for middle-aged men, for example. Nothing distinguished the students from the lecturers when both wore jeans. An existing product, Dockers, was redirected at the older market, leaving 501s as a young person’s jean which could be personalised by shrinking, bleaching of tearing (Myers, 1999).
Branding and advertising in the 1980s created the ‘new man’, in touch with his feminine side, The Launderette used shamelessly homoerotic male body-worship imagery, and Kamen became the classic gay icon - the lone hero standing aside from mainstream society and, perhaps, looking down on it a little.
“There’s always the sort of circle that goes on, you know we find something incredibly fashionable our kids come along and they want to reject what we do, so there’s a sense of them finding their own identity. Of course what a jeans company has to do is somehow constantly identify with the emerging market, with the emerging teenage market. You’ve got to capture somebody in their youth but once you’ve got into a pair of jeans in your youth you kind of stay with them for the rest of your life because it’s like putting your youth on again. When you’re putting on a pair of jeans you really are putting on your youth. We have a very interesting relationship with jeans, it’s a very kind of deep psychological relationship in terms of what they mean, the fact that the more you were them the better they get. They are very particular to you, how you wear them even though they are all the same. Ostensibly, 5 pocket, Western jean, that’s what they are classically referred to as, but everybody has a sort of relationship with their jeans which is different from everybody else, how you wear them, what you put in the pockets, how the pockets therefore wear, how you rub them, what stage do you wash them, how often do you wash them, so its an incredibly organic product, and therefore your relationship with them is quite deep. So when you’re emerging as a teenager, when you’re emerging into adulthood, putting on your jeans is in a sense putting on your adulthood. That feeling that sense stays with you for the rest of your life. So it’s very important if you’re marketing jeans to market at that emerging market.” (Hegarty Interview)
I asked John Hegarty his views on whether The Launderette campaign had given permission to the mass market to wear denim. He replied:

“You’ve touched a nerve, there we had gone through the late 70s and early 80s, we called it the post punk phenomena where really what punk did, it blew all fashion apart. So that there was no fashion and you basically, as soon as something became fashionable it was out of fashion, it was anarchic, it was a completely anarchic period. To a large extent you followed whatever music you were into, you dressed like that particular band so you’d get people who were fans of Dexy’s Midnight Runners they’d be dressed like the band of Dexy’s Midnight Runners or you’d get Boy George fans who were literally dressed the way Boy George was dressed and then you got the new Romantics and all that sort of thing going on. So it was very difficult marketing to that group of people, completely fragmented. And then with the resurgence of people like Wham and bands like that, they began to get a more cohesive fashion look and people wanted a kind of look that they could all join in and everyone could be a part of. And laundrette was the thing that sparked that desire, because we presented a look, a feel, a style, an attitude that suddenly connected with the mid 80’s teenager, and they said that’s cool we can all buy into that, it’s very simple it can just be a T shirt a pair of 501s you can where them anyway you like and all of a sudden fashion became easy again. Whereas before that it was incredibly difficult I mean, God, fashion in north London was different from fashion in South London, what band you were into, what music you listened, where you went to school, where you went to college and it was a completely fragmented market up until that moment”. (Hegarty Interview 2004)

Buffalo was a look, an attitude, a creative collective of photographers, designers, hairstylists, pop stars and models

Fashion stylist Ray Petri revolutionised menswear with his eclectic styling flair. His work was visionary and is still highly influential today. In The Face, Nick Logan described the style Petri created, and for which Nick Kamen was the poster boy, as ‘Buffalo’. This was a look that defined masculinity and a change of attitude towards fashion and styling. “Buffalo was a look, an attitude, a gain; a creative collective of photographers, designers, hairstylists, pop stars and models working around the creative hub of super stylist.” (The Face, 2003). First appearing in The Face in August 1983, and credited to ‘Sting Rays’ Petri, along with Marc Lebon and Jamie Morgan, it incorporated clothes from sources as diverse as specialist sports shops, second hand stores and Benetton. The attitude was irreverent, eclectic and, on occasions, absurd. If this approach seems unremarkable now, it is proof of how influential Buffalo proved to be then. Wearing sports gear as fashion was a radical concept. Big name designer fashion was an influence but never a necessity; “read these pages as IDEAS rather than designer garments”, said The Face, “which is to say that the white Claude Montana jacket over the page will set you back an arm and a leg at Browns, but you can pick up something similar – a waiter’s jacket, say, at Oxfam”.
In 1985 the distinctive and startlingly contemporary aesthetic that had been built up by Petri finally revealed its name; a single page portrait of a male model, credited to Buffalo (Mark Lebon, James Ray Petri) was captioned ‘portrait of a Buffalo Boy looking hard in the yard’.

Buffalo’s transitional approach was revolutionary, as was its new vision of masculinity; nothing like this had ever been seen in fashion before. Nearly all its models were men, and Buffalo was bossy cool – simultaneously hard and sensitive – and nodding towards Brando. Buffalo took men’s styling to a new league, and Petri was instrumental in putting Arena, The Face’s sister title, on the fashion map when it launched in 1987. Buffalo had a strong impact on the fashion world and styling and on cult objects in particular. By the end of the 1980s Levi’s jeans were worn in Britain by pop stars including Bros. The Buffalo Look, meanwhile, could be seen spreading through the streets of British cities.

Interview with L’Enfant creator Spencer Rowell

In an interview with the author Spencer Rowell, creator of L’Enfant ,Rowell’s discusses the success of the poster pin up which represented the new man L’Enfant. Speaking almost twenty years on, Spencer Rowell offers this opinion as to why the poster was so successful: “The nature of the iconic image is that when you look back it is what everybody thought was ideal at the time.’ (Rowell Interview). The idea of the male model wearing denim really sold the narrative to a wider audience. He could have been any class, or any profession; he represented a new man who changed nappies and shared the responsibilities of parenting.

Spencer Rowell’s man and baby poster L’Enfant (Fig. 2) is a perfect example of a new concept of gender portrayed through photography. The image of a naked man and a baby captured the heart of millions of young women in the UK. It continues to be seen today as phone wallpaper, and as a screensaver, and is still selling in the US. In 1986 the Athena poster L’Enfant, signed by the photographer, was so popular that it sold over six million copies, making Spencer Rowell famous. Rowell’s poster showed the male figure as a proliferation of identities; father figure, husband and lover, the decision for the model to wear ripped Levi’s signifies the importance of the jean at this time.

The poster was sold in an ordinary poster rack with other Athena or pop star pinups in high street retail stores such as Argos and Woolworths. Without any extra marketing, the success was astonishing. “It was sat in an ordinary rack with Duran Duran and other music posters. The time was right for a poster like this; black and white imagery made a huge comeback in pop videos and promotional material” (Rowell Interview) and it was perfectly in tune with the spirit of the times:

“Men and women wanted the same thing; men wanted to be seen as more sensitive and stop looking at me as the bread winner. It became cool to become a sensitive male, and this came at the same time as the poster that symbolised what both sexes want and even the gay scene identified with the acceptability of showing a feminine side. This was refreshing and remains part of everyday life.” (Rowell Interview)

By capturing the image for L’Enfant, Spencer Rowell moved from being simply a photographer to being an innovator as well. Recent publicity about the poster, including articles and a television documentary in which the model claimed to have slept with 3,000 women, have damaged the message of the image and rewritten the story. Spencer Rowell believes that the model deliberately set out to destroy the message behind the image and contradict the dream that women were buying into. The original image may be tarnished by what we have discovered by the model’s revelations, but this is an iconic image which captured the spirit of the decade in which it was created and can firmly be placed, because of the way it is styled and posed, within the decade.

Spencer Rowell had a proven track record as a photographer before L’Enfant he had worked on the Lois jeans campaign, which used images which were Gothic, black and white and grainy. With his experience and reputation as an advertising photographer, Rowell believed that:

“Advertising follows the patterns of street culture, and combining music with imagery touches the soul. Though the use of photography is becoming more popular, there still remains only a handful of images which become iconic. Being in touch with your feminine side is acceptable but in the eighties it was new and in the music scene the New Romantics wore make up and feminine fabrics. All expressed the same thing, men wanting to say ‘I am heterosexual but also sensitive and caring’.” (Rowell Interview).
The image of L’Enfant, which depicted a man who would not be ashamed to express his feelings, reflected new attitudes that would trickle into the mainstream, and which modified the public’s perception of manhood. Popular imagery, such as the Spencer Rowell poster, illustrates a new respect for the body in heterosexual men. In the contemporary men’s magazine Men’s Health the importance of becoming body conscious through diet and exercise is a constant theme. Calvin Klein’s fashion and aftershave campaigns show inspiration taken from L’Enfant, shot in black and white, they used seductive imagery to take the aftershaves Obsession and Eternity to number one in the market place.

Levi’s by Eddie Cochrane 1987

Another significant campaign launched by Levi’s in 1987, is Guitar by Eddie Cochrane. Cochran was famous for performing rock and roll in head to toe denim.

The concept for the 1987 Levi campaign was based on a New Year’s Eve party given by the long-dead 1950s American singer Eddie Cochrane. The main female character struggles to decide what to wear. Eventually she chooses her Levi’s 501s. On arriving at the party she is under dressed compared to the other women who look glamorous and elegant. Her decision to wear her jeans becomes a wise one when Eddie Cochrane invites her to stay.

The campaign describes the social acceptability of casual dressing in the late 1980s. Dress etiquettes had been strict up until this period and those wearing jeans, trainers and casual wear were often refused entry to bars, clubs and restaurants. This campaign encouraged a change in the rules, which evidently took place. Advertising agencies granted permission to dress casually and also promised that this would attract the right kind of mate. The agencies broadcast, to a national market, a new way of dressing which otherwise would have been kept to the London hub. The advertisement cleverly marketed itself not just at 1980s young people, who went out and bought the original Eddie Cochrane record and were introduced to him perhaps for the first time, but also at the original 1950s teenagers for whom Cochrane had provided the soundtrack to their youth.

Flat Eric

The advertising campaign for Levi’s ‘Sta-prest’ is actually more remembered than the product. Featuring the character of Flat Eric, it was an unexpected departure for Levi’s and proved to be hugely successful (Saunders, 1999: 91). Creative director Caroline Klein had a strong vision for Levi’s. Klein was a young fresh talent and supported new film makers. She saw potential in a short film by Quentin D’ipeux. He had bought a puppet from a flea market in Paris, a yellow monkey from which he removed the ears, giving it a flat head, hence the name Flat Eric. Posters were launched with the caption ‘Have you seen Flat Eric?’ and ‘Wanted’ posters (a tongue-in-cheek version of the style of Western ‘wanted’ posters) were put up at music festivals such Glastonbury. It was made deliberately easy for people to steal the posters (Stephanie Wilson Interview), which they did in large numbers! The Sta-Prest Levi’s product is not one of the company’s most successful products but the ‘Flat Eric’ campaign achieved every success that a campaign could aspire to. With the signature theme tune going to number one in the British charts and Flat Eric achieving cult status, the campaign was far more memorable than the Sta-prest jeans

Levi’s Originals Stand the Test of Time 1991

In 1991 Levi’s had a new campaign, Levi’s , Stand the Test of Time, which appeared in print and on television; it featured an undiscovered Brad Pitt as the main character. Pitt, discharged from prison, picks up his few belongings – a camera and a pair of Levi’s – which have stood the test of time by being as cool today as the day he last wore them, before his prison term. His girlfriend is waiting for him and the prison gates close, as Pitt photographs the prison officer. The advertisement defines Levi’s positioning in the market; anti-establishment, cool and classic. The advertisement made Pitt’s face famous; his Hollywood career took off and he went on to play a similar cowboy character in the film Thelma and Louise (1991). Levi’s was in trouble. Sales of its denim had dropped by 13 per cent, and only recently the company had to lay-off 30% of its US workforce. In an effort to head off trendy competition from the likes of Diesel and Evisu, in July 1997 the company switched its advertising strategy from glamorous Nick Kamen-style pants-off films. Amanda Le Roux - Levi's then marketing director - said at the time that the company was making its advertising more surreal to claw back the hip and the underground (Armstrong, 1999). How did the changes in market affect advertising and hence the image of denim, did they make it more subtle, more diverse, more stereotyped, weirder. In 1999 Bartle Bogle and Hegarty launched a three-dimensional jean that had a stay- pressed, pristine look.

Denim-Trapped within its fibres are legends, lifestyles and values

, fabricThe versatility of denim has become an intrinsic part of fashion culture worldwide; denim has clearly had an impact on how clothes are worn and more importantly perceived. As fashion and society have changed, so has denim, and as it evolved, its subtle influence caused changes in society to accelerate. Denim is more than a fabric. Trapped within its fibres are legends, lifestyles and values. How did a simple overall for American farms and factory workers achieve this celebrity status? What is the background to this remarkable fabric, and what was the journey from workplace to fashion icon

“Denim is a special fabric. Like no other fabric; denim has unique qualities. With time its value improves. Whilst many other fabrics wear away, denim prospers, taking on the contours and individuality of the wearer. It promotes universalism whilst at the same time lending individual expression”.
(David Tring, 2004)

The wise words of Ruby Jeans

Kate Eccles, brainchild of RUBY Jeans, designs to the beat of her own creative rhythm and based on her intuition and vast fashion experience.

RUBY jeans are a premium UK denim label, named after her late Grandmother. The brands English heritage loans traditionally British names to each cut and style; Lil, Pearl, Connie, John, Grace and Vera. Each collection contains its own fortune cookie-esque message, as if told by the wise Ruby herself.

This season’s label reads; 'Sleep where you will. Wake with the strength to deeply love'

RUBY is about simplicity and consistency, the brand sends out a positive responsible message working with organic cottons and informing their factories of changes in ethical fashion production. The jeans have an original embroidered texture to them based on tribal African cultures where the denim is stippled like skin. This with the flattering cut and ultra modern colours makes a winning formula for the cool modern denim seeker.

Kate is half business woman and half spiritualist; she is generous with her knowledge, 'No one explains how hard it is for fashion graduates in this country'. Whilst acknowledging that Britain produces creative designers she says that business practice is key . Kate’s philosophy comes in time with a much needed idea that the industry and University’s need to work together giving young designers a realistic view of running a business. ‘Every fashion graduates dream is to set up their own label, but high risks are involved'.

Kate is no stranger to risk taking and stress, she understands the unpredictable climate of fashion. After all she is an example of a designer who lives and breathes her dreams with a balance of innovation and business assertion.