The camera moves
in closer on a very old pair of jeans. It
becomes the medium for a highly visual, strongly graphic sequence, which trains
the viewer's eye in the arcana of "denim culture." The lens pans over the garment, stopping to
note the identifying characteristics of the object. Every detail tells a tale: the brilliant invention of the pocket
rivets; the true source of the words "denim" and "blue
jeans"; and the importance of the natural dye indigo in the famed fading
of the cotton: in brief, the three aspects defining a pair of jeans. This introduction to the study of an icon,
while avoiding a chronological structure, will nevertheless lay the basis for a
vision of how history is woven into the blue jean: the appearance or
disappearance of certain elements (rivets, threads, cloth), the fabric (the
weight and quality of the cotton), changes in cut (vagaries of fashion or
wartime shortages) and shape (the expanding girth of the population, the
conversion to ladies' wear). In a way,
it lays out a historical timeline, which will reappear periodically as the film
tells the saga of the blue jean.
From San
Francisco, cradle of the Levi, to Osaka, where the world's most beautiful
blue-jean fabrics are now made, with stops in Africa and Northern Europe, the
film travels the "denim planet" according to a device focusing on
people, wearing jeans in the street, and striking a pose for the camera, at the
four corners of the earth.
As we
converse with various trendsetters and experts (famous fashion designers,
enthusiastic collectors, corporate CEOs, sociologists, etc.), each provides his
or her own educated take on the jeans. But
they also speak of their personal relationship with this special garment. As a result, the film covers several key
chapters, each of which is a sort of "pocket" containing one aspect
of the blue jean:
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Economics,
as reflected by current manufacturing, wholesaling, and retailing practices:
globalization, environmental concerns, advertising battles, e-commerce, the patent
war, and fair trade.
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Culture:
film, rock-n-roll, and social activism: blue jeans have made political
statements in many times and places, as tokens of rebellion for both Soviet
youth and free-loving Western flower children. They are a primary artifact of world culture, the first to
transcend the boundaries of geography, race, politics, and class. When you put on a pair of jeans, you're
wearing a whole mythology, made up of cowboys and rockabilly music. Yet at the same time, a ten-year-old French
kid, who knows nothing of hippies or John Wayne, will love his pair!
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Industry and
manufacturing: from their invention to today, the blue jeans have shadowed the
rise of the industrial era. Their paths
are closely mingled, because they witnessed the birth of marketing,
advertising, and economic lobbying. And
the tradition endures: when Apple CEO Steve Jobs first presented the iPod, the technological
revolution of the early 2000s, he stood at the podium and... took the device out
of the watch pocket of his blue jeans!
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Lastly,
psychology: the relationship to the body, to desire, to representation, to sex,
informed by collectors, fetishists, artists, and fashion designers. By becoming the quintessential unisex
garment, blue jeans literally embodied the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Nowadays, they are still an object invested
with fantasies, and a de rigueur wardrobe standard.
Please stay informed through the official website: http://www.fadedblueplanet.com