JEANS AND I

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday
  

I remember very well when I got my first Jeans !


me at 13(my hair wasn't that dark!)

I was 13 and looked much older ! But that was only the appearance inside I was still a playful child, which sometimes caused me some troubles because people thought that for an about 18 year old looking  girl I shouldn't behave so childish and run around and roller skate like a 10 year old. In the 50th the girls were not so developed as today. As the Barbie doll of my mother, I wore whatever she wanted me to wear, that changed later !

It was rather difficult to get nice clothes just after the war, Germany was occupied by the allies. But we were lucky we lived in Bonn which belonged to the American sector.

As the population had to be dressed in the in the postwar period, in the American Army Surplus stores Jeans from Levis, Lee and Wrangler were for sale and greeted with enthusiasm especially by the teenagers ! They also were cheap and came on purpose for the parents to dress their sons and daughters.

We wore Jeans everywhere even at school. Uniforms were banned, Germany had seen enough uniforms since 1930 ! They had an overdose. Even policemen who had to wear a uniform were disliked for that. I grew up with the conviction that all people wearing a uniform were bad and especially the military.  It was put into my mind by my grandma and it hasn't changed ever since only I became a bit more tolerant.

My first jeans were the real once from the American Army stock and of course they had to undergo a special treatment. With the help of my mother I put them on and then sat in the bath tube while she filled it in with hot water so that they would shrink to fit exactly on my body.  It was a funny procedure, and I had to keep them on until they were dry ! My father shook his head, and stated that at least I was slim enough to wear them.

I was very proud with the result and together with all my girlfriends and classmates who had done the same, we all wore jeans !

When my parents moved to Belgium in 1959 I was shocked ! The teenagers there didn't know Jeans yet, wore uniforms at school and their fashion was old looking and  far behind what I called fashion and to what I was used to. Jeans only moved slowly in later in the 60th, but were mostly worn by boys and not by girls. Girls still had to wear skirts. When I left the German school and went to a Belgian college, I had to wear skirts or a dress and over that a blue apron dress !! I thought they were 100 years behind modern times !

In the 70th when I was a respectable working wife and mother, the Jeans disappeared from my wardrobe and I only wore them occasionally on weekends.


black and blue Jeans

When I stopped working, I started to wear Jeans again, I have no skirts anymore, I wear Jeans in all colors all the time and when I have to go out I wear some dressed up trousers, I went back to the past and to the future ! I think Jeans will last forever in fashion !

The history of the Jeans you find here