It is quite normal for many people would love to wear jeans during their leisure hours. This will give them an opportunity to show part of their collection item kept hidden in their wardrobe at home. For an ordinary man, he would be thinking that wearing jeans will portray him as a tough guy and give charm to his physical outlook. Whether it is true or not, it remain anybody’s guess.
In wearing Jeans, you do not need to emulate famous actors like John Travolta or Tom Cruise just because of their superstar status. They too are human beings and need to put on jeans to look cool and feel comfortable on stage. We have to admit that we cannot follow them except for being ourselves and being happy with who we are instead of trying to be someone that we will never be.
Nevertheless, Jeans are a very effective tool in our life. In the United States, it is estimated that one person owns an average of 7 pairs of Jeans. This shows the significance of jeans to the ever-growing population in relation to the wealth of their economy.
Due to its multi-functional role, Jeans was considered one of the most popular garment in the world which recorded of more than 2.0 billion pieces sold in the past years. The figure attributes to good business performance from the garment sector.
Tun Mahathir is one example of high-status people that make use of Jeans to participate in sports activities during their leisure hours by taking part in Cycle Ride events at Putrajaya and Horse Riding in Pulau Langkawi. Despite his advanced age, he still got a style to put on an outfit that catches the public eye.
Jimmy Carter who was a former planter before being elected the president of the United States was known to be a fond user of jeans in his farmyard. Ronald Reagan gets used to wearing Jeans at his ranch in Texas after his retirement. To stay young, Bill Clinton put on Jeans during his presidential campaign against his much older candidate to gain popularity vote. Barack Obama wore his infamous mom jeans to attend sports events.
Contrary to America, wearing Jeans in Russia was discouraged during the cold war. The Russian Govt. took a firm stand to prohibit the import of Jeans to block the Western influence on their people. After the war ended, the ban was uplifted allowing more people to get access to jeans products in the open market. The lesson learnt here is that Jeans were becoming a symbol of freedom and self-expression to many people regardless of social status, ideology and background.
Many Hollywood actors in the era 1950s and 1960s such as John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and James Dean have played key roles in promoting and transforming Jeans from being simple clothing into fashionable items to be used in film production that will provide a big impact to their audience at large.
In recent years, David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Kate Middleton, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and many more celebrities and public figures dominate the fashion world and came out of their comfort zone to put on their preferred jeans to win the heart and soul of their fan in order to boost their image and reputation while capitalising the popularity of smart casual of Jeans.
Bruce Springsteen who is a rock singer been portrayed as a symbol of a true American hero was making headlines a few years back because of his effort to unite and bring all American people together through his song and concert in the last 40 years. Despite being a millionaire, he is still the same man, same attitude and always put on his blue jeans in expressing the meaning of freedom in the American way of life.
The success story of Jeans could not take place because one guy by the name of Levis Strauss, who is a dedicated tailor migrated from Germany to San Francisco about 160 years ago. He started to design jeans from a strong and hard fabric material called denim. Owing to Jeans possessing durability and strength, many American working populations have shifted to the outfit to be used in their daily life, and leisure hours and to serve many other purposes.
To preserve the authenticity of their Jeans, Levis Strauss and the other partner Jacob Davis, who were also responsible for marketing jeans nationwide took another milestone by making it patented with U.S. Govt. Their successful venture in the market has led to many firms taking the initiative to follow in their footsteps in producing a competitive product for the various segment of the market in the world.
To date, Levi’s Jeans remain one of the best-known brands and reportedly sold about USD 6.17 billion in the year 2022. It could be estimated that more than half of World Jeans production was contributed from Asian countries.
The trend of Jeans in Malaysia has begun as early as the 1950s. Retail outlets were opened to capitalise on the mass production and demand for various types of jeans. The popularity of Jeans took the world by storm internationally and had a significant impact on our local garment industry. Since then, Jeans have remained on everyone's lips when it comes in choosing the type of pants and clothes especially to youngsters.
In Malaysia, wearing Jeans was very much influenced by Western media and movies. In those days, film Stars such as Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, and Robert Redford were followed closely by their fan here in terms of their dress. The emergence of Rock and Pop Groups such as Deep Purple, Beatles and Bee Gees has further boosted the sales of Jeans in this region.
Our Local Bands like Alleycat, Headwind, Lefthanded, and Search followed a similar style and each member used to wear Jeans in their concert and also performed a night live band. Their lead singers such as David Arumugam, Zainal Abidin, Nash and Amy Search were all renowned for their pairs of Jeans.
As an ardent fan of Rock group, I used to follow their progression when they perform live at Saturday night events in various entertainment outlets such as The Ship and Sunrise Boulevard in Penang during the late 80s. Singers like David Arumugam, Loga, Zainol Abidin and Seha were the favourite among the crowds and of course, they will always wear blue jeans to grace the occasion.
During my university days in the early 80s, I used to have a handful of seasoned blue jeans to cater for my own consumption which includes attending class,co-curricular, travelling, balik kampung, leisure, sports activities and even wearing it to perform prayer at the mosque.
Owing to its flexibility in usage, Jeans has become a basic necessity to most students on campus and it forms part and parcel of our university life. Jeans can be sighted worn everywhere whether in class, the library, the cafeteria, Dewan Tunku, Science Faculty and last but not least hanging in the dorm and hostel during those days.
In Penang, there is here one of the oldest shops for many would have known for selling various types of Jeans they are called Pitchay Gunny I always go shopping for a new pair of jeans during those days. We have to believe that this shop was set up in early 1900 to cater for all sorts of England-made retail products during the time when Malaya was under the British Empire .and colonisation.
Until such a time, the business that was run by Pitchay Gunny was interrupted temporarily due to World War 1 & 11 including the Japanese Occupation from 1941-1942 in Malaya. Despite these setbacks, the legacy of the shop in continuing its business remains intact and has never been compromised throughout the years since its inception.
The business start to rebuild and became flourish and popular again in the 1950s onwards when they merchandise all sorts of Jeans especially made from denim owing to rapid development in the garment industry particularly Jeanswear products that hit and explode in the United States making waves throughout Asia and the Pacific Region.
Today, Pitchay Gunny is not the only shop that remains one of the best-selling Jeans serving the community in the northern region but the ability to preserve its heritage status that was highly commendable by many people in the years to come.
For jeans lovers, you may wish to visit my favourite shop at the following address and link so as to ensure you have the latest update on Jeans and general menswear:
Pitchay Gunny Fashion House
178, Jalan Penang, 10000, George Town, Pulau Pinang
Tel no : 04- 2637781
https://www.facebook.com/pitchaygunny
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