Distrssed Denim Report

Distressed denim

VISUAL AWARENESS fashion communication and promotion harriet ogden N0644469

Visual Awareness brief This report will communicate the trend category denim. It will explore distressed denim jeans by analysing fashion contexts and broader creative contexts. It will unpack semiotic codes in visual advertising campaigns, compare retail visual merchandise i.e. shop window displays, and explore the creative contexts of denim jeans and how they are adapted for many creative references outside of fashion. It will also show the fundamental values of distressed jeans in cultural contexts from the 1800’s to earlier dates.

Finally, my own communication for denim as a category will be explored with a suggestion of a new direction or alternative use for the product and material.

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Contents 4-5

Advertising Campaign comparison Calvin klien/levi’s

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retail analysis comparison diesel/pepe jeans london

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broader creative culture insulation/crafts/interiors

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broader culture context 1800’s levi’s- 1990’s denim’s journey

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new context idea direction alternative use

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new context idea estee lauder x levi’s

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harvard references and illustrations

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Advertising Campaign Comparison

Comparing the two similar women’s jean adverts, the two contrast in their messages. I have chosen images that are similar in content, but different in their messages.

The first image is from Spring 2015 Calvin Klein.

Shot by fashion photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott. As a brand they are more focused on the sex appeal, selling underwear. This is their focus selling point, compared to Jan 2003 Levi’s

by BHH shot in Singapore that is more of a traditional image and represents the brand this way.

Partnership is suggested in their campaigns to sell unisex jeans. The connotations of these images are that they both portray relationships that differ in their meanings. Similarities being that the female in both is fully clothed however the male is topless, meaning that the women in both is more reserved than the man. However the topless male is more of a sexual connotation in Calvin Klein’s campaign than Levi’s. Additionally, both male characters in these two images are showing bravery and protection towards the female by one showing abs (CK) and two by having their arm in a bandage. (Levi) The semiotic visual codes of both of these adverts consist of the denotations being male and female, touching, skin showing, complex positioning, minimum clothing, one monochrome and one colour. These elements in both images add up to connote different meanings and thoughts to the viewer. However the connotations of both images equal to love and relationships at a glance.

The key themes for Levi’s campaign are tradition, relationships, protector, contemporary dance and passion. The image portrays the male as a

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strong protector; his bigger frame over the women and his hand in a bandage shows this. The female is replying on the male to stay standing. The position suggests the couple’s legs are one, which emphasizes togetherness and the brands unisex target market. I felt this strong message could be understood by the consumer as the campaign is stating that the jeans are now available for women to wear too, men are willing to share, ‘’The Classic Mens 501 Now Re-Cut For Women’’. Levi’s being the founder of Denim and keeping to their traditional brand image, has a wider age range of target audience. An older generation wearing Levi’s would also purchase denim for their children.

Possibly ranging from ages 16-45.

Contrasting to this, the themes for Calvin Klein’s jean campaign are sexy, seductive, tense, and desirable. This on the other hand suggests Calvin Kleins target audiences are slightly older and enthused by a feature from an attractive half naked male icon. With regard to this, Justin Biebers fan base ranges from relatively young to young women, a plus for the brand as it would have been viewed globally. His strong position and abs on show also suggest a protective male. Although the male is still the protector in this campaign, he is giving himself away to the women in this image, just before a sexual act is about to take place. The position of her hand suggests she wants more from him and implies if the consumer was to purchase a pair of these jeans they can expect to have the same response, man or women. This older generation would be able to understand the connotations of this sexy campaign and be attracted to the brands message.

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Retail Analysis Comparison

I have chosen to visually compare Diesel and Pepe Jeans window displays for denim visual merchandise. They both contrast in their levels of retail market and in their messages too.

Firstly, Diesel has the upper hand of being a luxury item and can be sold in an independent and international luxury lifestyle store, Selfridges. The displays were during the festive season. Therefore for these sorts of stores displays are instantly more extravagant and appeal to higher-class consumers. A large budget will be spent by the store, as they are usually a main focus of the city. Diesel covers theatrical elements in its two window displays, ‘Jack and the jean stalk’ using jeans to build the infamous beanstalk. This humorous concept to sell jeans would appeal to a large audience around this time of year and be an eye-catching feature of the department store. Along with ‘jean genie’ where the flying carpet is made from jeans referring to Aladdin. The red curtain used is a theatrical element and suggests a show about to begin; this prompts the more mature audience to nostalgia and fantasy. The play on words is effective as it is not only dazzling and eye catching but is also a clever pun, this suggests they are wanting to be new and individual, get away from the usual ‘distressed jean’ image and use humour to sell their generic product in pantomime season i.e Christmas.

On the other hand, Pepe jeans also have an upper hand due to the title of the brand, having the word jeans in the name is already suggestive to consumers. The brand has focused the display on being more literal for their audience. For instance the image I have chosen features the distressed handy man jeans. The use of rope fittings,

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hanging equipment, large reels of thread, industrial lighting, metal boxes and distressed wood suggests a workman’s atmosphere. Pepe jeans London have a target audience which establishes the ‘London look’ - youthful, stylish and socially savvy. The company that was established in 1973 is able to reference the workman as they have a lot of history to refer back to as they were around during the growth of denim fashion and were an early manufacturer of jeans in the 70’s. This reinforces why Pepe jeans’ window display works well for their brand image of tradition. They are inspired by the history of denim and use this to connect to the target audience using props that suggest vintage, industrial, masculinity and bravery all connecting with the history of where denim originated.

This contrast between both displays is because of their conveying of different stories and target audiences. The Diesel display is tongue in cheek and is being daring with humour instead of creating a display that only shows the product off in a way that’s been done before. Pepe jeans stay safe to their brand image and to stick to their traditional background. In this instance, using historical context to connect with their audience reflected in their window display. The brands are similar in the fact that they are both smart/ casual international brands that sell jeans to unisex target audiences, both established during the 1970’s. This was at the time when jean manufacturers became largely successful during the growth of Denim in fashion.

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Broader Creative Context

Denim fabric has been around since the 1800’s therefore it is a well-known and trusted fabric.

This is why we can utalise its uses for creative contexts other than a fashion item.

Denim has been trusted in architecture; the insulation of a building, which consists of recycled cotton and denim waste. This came about in 2012 when the London Olympic games were held; a development was created using the recycled insulation and was also transported in 2014 for the winter games held in Sochi. This process of ‘recovery insulation’ was established by charity schools and homes energy education. ‘The firm claims its product uses 70% less energy in production than the equivalent conventional inorganic insulation’. I believe this process should be used throughout the world for big developments like this, it is an interesting concept that uses less energy and recycles unwanted cottons and denim fabric that would usually go to waste. If there are such successful uses then it should be used more often. The concept of the company donating and saving will not only help the environment, it will also benefit economically and be successful for the companies social status; for instance helping out with charities and schools.

Denim being one of the most recognisable fabrics in the world is used for recycling home interiors.

The recyclable denim jeans can be used for many home furnishings to re vamp them into a completely new and edgy item.

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An example of this is sofas and chairs; someone who is creative can cover them quite easily. Recycling jeans for new home interiors is a sustainable way of not wasting denim and also good for clearing space in your wardrobe, either by giving something a new look or by giving them away to a charity shop. The company Jeanbag reinforce the importance of recycling denim, they push the idea of seeing waste products as valuable resources, they state- ‘’If you knew it takes almost a kilo of cotton, 10,000 litres of water, and countless hours of labour and skill to make a single pair of denim jeans, wouldn’t you want to make sure they never end up in landfill?’’

Additionally, denim has an even broader creative concept outside of the fashion world; denim crafts are a popular way of recycling denim jeans into something unique for your home. For instance re-covering an old lampshade can create a relaxed, edgy vibe for a room and is recycling both denim and the unwanted lamp. Along with a denim organiser for an office, an easy way to recycle as jean pockets can be sewn together and used to store office equipment.

The labour, skill and time during the creation of jeans shouldn’t be forgotten about. The amount of water to grow the cottonseed, the farmers, dyers and weavers must all be considered. These processes that accumulate into making just one pair of jeans should be more often addressed, less jeans would be for landfill. These creative concepts over arch each other and suggest the importance of recycling denim for many different uses.

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Broader Cultural Context

Denim fabric is one of the most favoured diverse fabrics in the world. It was, as research shows created in France approximately in the 17th century. By the 1800’s Levi Strauss from Germany moved to America and joined forces with a tailor called Jacob Davis together they patent and sold denim garments reinforced with copper rivets to strengthen the pockets and the button fly opening.

This is when the infamous Levi’s originated. It was created for American cowboys and workmen in the mines who needed hardwearing protective clothing. By combining strong fibres together to create a durable fabric, Serge de Nîmes was created.

Serge is the name of the fabric that came from France. Denim became the fabrics name and was then adopted by cowboys in movies in the 1950’s, this created a huge increase of demand for jeans and they became a popular item of clothing. After this event, jeans weren’t made as much due to World War 2, which decreased the demand for jeans. However off duty soldiers would wear them as a casual item of clothing that gave denim an instant look of masculinity, which people demanded. James Dean the young movie star starred in ‘Rebel without a cause’ in the 1950’s wearing denim jeans. Denim became a symbol of rebellion during this time; because of this they were sometimes banned in American schools, restaurants and theatres. I believe this is why there is still a heroic, rebel, sexiness stimulated around denim still to this day because of this huge movement in history.

Furthermore, during the 60’s and 70’s denim became most fashionable worldwide for casual wear.

Many different styles and historic brands such as Levis, Wrangler and Lee were created to suit

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different social platforms such as hippies, mods, and 1980’s subcultures of heavy metal and punk rockers.

Gucci then adopted jeans in 1980 with their own fashion label sewn into the fabric that people could show off. Due to this take over by Gucci, prices increased and jeans were no longer seen as a workers casual item of clothing they were a fashionable and affordable item that everyone wanted to wear.

The 1980’s Brit pop trio Bros brothers adapted a denim trend and wore light acid wash distressed look, loose fitting and belted denim jeans. However they had more of a female following so this trend wasn’t caught on by many masculine males it was seen as more feminine, slightly camp and an overdone pristine look. Summer 1999 was when jeans were back for good; the likes of Dior, Chanel, Versace and Chloe brought them back which stemmed to own brands creating purely denim lines such as Diesel and Rock & Republic.

I believe all of these factors still exist in society today; jeans can have many different connotations from the sexy to relaxed look to the worker men to the high fashion look.

Acceptance of denim jeans continued through the 1980’s and 1990’s to the point that they are today a staple part of everyone’s wardrobe, of all ages and genders.

Denim has been around for several decades and will continue to grow and grow; it can be worn by anyone in different garment forms and continues to be worn as protective garments with cattle ranch workers and motorcycle riders due to the fabrics diverse durability compared with other similar fabrics.

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New context idea

A new direction for denim jeans, placing them into a completely new context would be to collaborate with a makeup brand such as Estee Lauder putting denim onto an item of make up. This will consist of collaborating with Levi’s jeans to source the materials, however they are off cuts so recycling the denim would be a positive for environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Wastage of denim is something that should be more addressed worldwide for instance the labor that it takes to create just one pair of jeans from the shippers to the farmers and factory workers.

Also the 10,000 litres of water that is used for the kilo of cottonseed, I feel this campaign address this. The make up campaign itself would consist of having denim jean materials on the products that are ideal for an everyday use, linking to the way the world wears denim; regularly and in a casual, relaxed sort of way. Denim is cool, young and on trend. The make up would be less expensive as it would appeal as an everyday routine for consumers.

The makeup would still be a high quality, however consumers won’t have to save their salary for this collection. This would give a new direction for Estee lauder, something new would widen their target audience and be more appealing to the youthful market that find the prices more appealingly affordable. This specific audience would relate to the use of denim when reading the collection title ‘everyday icon’. The title of the collection suggests you can still look flawless with this affordable make up, the word icon suggests you will be memorable and give a lasting impression on others, everyday.

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I believe this would work well currently due to the make up brand having recently released a new campaign for double wear foundation. This featured stunning young model Kendall Jenner who is the age of 20. This ideal demographic would suit the transition into targeting for a lower age range. Therefore in my opinion; this collection would be a huge success.

Pricing for existing make up products within Estee Lauder aren’t completely affordable for the younger target audience of 16-25 so I believe there is a gap in the market for this. For this specific demographic I have created the ideal pricing range for the products, the lipstick would be £14 which competes with the well known Mac cosmetics that have the ideal audience I am aiming to target for this new collection. Shades would be shown by darker and lighter denim textures covering the whole lipstick also applying this to the lid of a foundation bottle. The foundation I am pricing at £18, which I feel, is a lot more affordable than the double wear foundation that is currently on sale for £30. For how often consumers need to re buy these products, its not as much of an investment before they are willing to make another purchase.

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everyday icon

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harvard Illustations figure 1) Title page denim jeans WGSN. Date unknown. http://www.wgsn.com/content/search/#/denim%2520jeans figure 2) Background denim textures. Date unknown. http://naldzgraphics.net/freebies/25-high-resolution-denim-textures/ figure 3) BHH Levi’s hugging. Bartle Bogle Hegarty, 2003. http://uk.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/28838/standing/levis figure 4) Justin Bieber, Lara Stone Calvin Klien. Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott Spring 2015. http://mumbrella.com.au/calvin-klein-rolls-justin-bieber-campaign-270005 figure 5) Jean Genie. Selfridges Christmas window display. December 2009. https://thewindowdisplayblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/a-cracking-christmas-at-selfridges/ figure 6) Jack and The Jean Stalk. Selfridges Christmas window display. December 2009. https://thewindowdisplayblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/a-cracking-christmas-at-selfridges/3selfridgesxmas09/ figure 7) Pepe Jeans Display of Jeans. Date unknown. http://www.escaparatinova.es/2013/08/pepe-jeans.html figure 8) Olympic building insulation. Construction manager. 2014. http://www.construction-manager.co.uk/on-site/insulation-round-denim-tunes-winter-olympics/ figure 9) Denim Lamp shade. Blogpost Dishfunctional designs. 2012. http://dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jeans-denim-recycled-upcycled-and.html figure 10) Organiser for stationary creative example. Lushome. Date unknown. http://www.lushome.com/modern-furnishings-made-of-recycled-blue-jeans/152872 figure 11) Denim chair. Blogpost Dishfunctional Designs. 2012. http://dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jeans-denim-recycled-upcycled-and.html figure 12) Levis’s Vintage Clothing. Norse Store. Date unknown. http://www.norsestore.com/catalog?section%5B%5D=clothing&category%5B%5D=jeans&brand=levis_vintage_clothing figure 13) Cowboy In Denim from 1930’s. Blogpost 2010. http://www.denimblog.com/2010/02/the-history-of-the-wonderful-fabric-denim/

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figure 14) James Dean. 1950’s Film- Rebel Without A Cause . https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/207095282834732552/ figure 15) Hippies in Denim. Blogpost 2012. http://hangercheap.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/musical-inspiration-for-hanger_20.html figure 16) Bros Brothers in Denim 35 denim style icons. 2016. http://www.stylist.co.uk/fashion/denim-style-icons figure 17) Gucci jeans from FIT exhibition New York. 2015. http://www.vogue.com/13373541/denim-fashions-frontier-fit-exhibition/ figure 18) Britney Spears/ Justin Timberlake Double Denim. 90’s/2000. Blogpost 2013. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a17160/britney-justin-denim/ figure 19) Double Denim Kendall Street Style. No date. http://www.eonline.com/photos/14382/kendall-jenner-s-street-style/496418 figure 20) Kendall and lipstick. http://www.vogue.it/en/beauty/beauty-news/2015/07/lipsticks-summer-2015-red-lipstick-kendall-jenner-lips-make-up-summer-#ad-image figure 21) Estee Lauder Make Up Stand. Own Photopshop manipulation. http://financesonline.com/top-10-richest-fashion-labels-of-all-time-levi-dior-hm-or-louis-vuitton/ figure 22) Estee Lauder Foundation Bottle. Own Photoshop manipulation. http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/make-up/the-best-foundation-tried-tested-the-best-foundationd17663c250260.html figure 23) Estee Lauder Logo. Date unknown. http://www.logopub.net/cat-logos-e-6.htm?page=57 figure 24) Levi Logo. Date unknown. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Levi%27s_logo.svg figure 25) Estee Lauder Lipstick. Own Photoshop manipulation. http://slimages.macysassets.com/is/image/MCY/products/3/optimized/1990563_fpx. tif?wid=1320&hei=1616&fit=fit,1&$filterlrg$

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harvard references Doyle, K. (no date) JEANBAG transforms denim jeans into beautiful homewares. Available at: http:// jeanbag.com.au/ (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

Little, D. (2007) Vintage Denim: An American story. United States: Schiffer Publishing.

Lorna (2010) The history of the wonderful fabric, Denim!. Available at: http://www.denimblog. com/2010/02/the-history-of-the-wonderful-fabric-denim/ (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

Mods and rockers (1998) Available at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item105730.html (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

Doyle, K. (no date) JEANBAG transforms denim jeans into beautiful homewares. Available at: http:// jeanbag.com.au/ (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

(Doyle, no date) Little, D. (2007) Vintage Denim: An American story. United States: Schiffer Publishing.

(Little, 2007) Lorna (2010) The history of the wonderful fabric, Denim!. Available at: http://www.denimblog. com/2010/02/the-history-of-the-wonderful-fabric-denim/ (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

(Lorna, 2010) Mods and rockers (1998) Available at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item105730.html (Accessed: 25 January 2016).

(Mods and rockers, 1998)

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