VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

1974: The Year of Non Denim Blue Jeans

1974 was an interesting year for fashion. Simultaneously, it was the golden age of synthetic fabrics and corduroy pants. All factors collided to make it a fashion moment that you are either utterly repulsed or you wax nostalgic over.

I brought this 1974 Jeep CJ/5 ad out of my collection today. It touted a special trim package of Jeep in Blue Jeans.” For a little while, I mulled over the benefits of a denim interior, and ultimately gave it the thumbs up. It may pose issues when sliding onto your seat in the middle of a rain storm that vinyl would never pose. Namely, your seat would stay wet longer. However, there would be many other benefits. It wouldn’t matter if it faded. You could always patch it too. Maybe I never really “read” the ad until now, but quite clearly it states:

Look what the well dressed Jeep CJ/5 is wearing! New Levi’s styled seats with matching fold down top. Made of rugged easy to care for vinyl fabric in absolute authentic styling-right down to the copper rivets!

Umm..vinyl?

Talk about a “bait and switch”

This was not the only false denim item being sold in 1974. Levi’s and Lee were clearly in cahoots.

Brawny – That’s the word for these Lee doubleknit jeans and matching shirt-jac. The cut hails from the West. In every detail…And comfort comes from the new non-glitter, snag -resistant doubleknit of 100% Dacron polyester.

Dacron isn’t denim! They sure don’t look like “jeans” to me.

It would seem logical that if something was labelled “denim” than it is made of the heavy cotton fabric popularly known as denim. It not, it is “denim look” or just quite simply “indigo vinyl.” If pants are not denim, but rather polyester, then they are slacks, cords, trousers, or pants, as they have nothing in common aside from a zipper.

I hate to be a stickler for details. Maybe it is because of my checkered past at a small high school where we relished our rare “jean days.” Show me a pair of pants that could be worn on a regular day and you won’t get me to call them jeans, no matter what the marketing department said.

I am going to go put on my gray fleece jeans, considered too “revealing” for school for both boys and girls (figure that one out) and take a jog around the block to try to cool off about this.

Readers Spending My Money

No sooner did I post a reminisce about dumpster diving in New York, an alert reader just slipped a note under my door about rent controlled homes.

The best way to save on rent is to find one of the Owner Financing Homes. Buying is cheaper than renting. If you plan to keep a residence somewhere else, you won’t have the debt ratio banks are looking for because you will try to own two places. An owner might understand your predicament and see that you are using the place in the city to scout out furniture and might be sympathetic to you. The money won’t go down the drain and when you are done, you might be able to rent it out before you sell it and flip it again.

Well, renting an apartment on Beacon Street in Boston or in Manhattan just to see what finds are at the estate sales or what midcentury furniture is cast out when students return overseas is really just a fantasy and not a legitimate pursuit of mine. Sure, rent is cheaper when you rent for the year versus the month and buying is more economical still IF you plan to live there for awhile. On some properties, it takes a couple of years to save, some a lot sooner depending on the market.  Do you think I have a cash dispenser in my wallet, by the way? I may seem like I have champagne tastes, but its only because I bought that ONE bottle of champagne.  And I have been looking at it for the past decade. Just admiring it.    I read through the FTC Overview on Mortgages and predatory lending. However, for me to be prey it wouldn’t be about shifty numbers but trying to confuse me with bursting into discussions about Herman Miller, WWII military uniforms or a sheet of $2 bills.

Curbside Seating

I was talking to a friend from the city, and I was reminiscing over the days of itty bitty Studio Apts that were wedged in the attic of brownstone apartment buildings. I have left that life far behind, but the treasures that people put up on the curb for the trash was amazing. Far from a dumpster diver, I couldn’t help not stop for a midcentury modern chair or a coffee table with a car engine as the base. Folks tossed it rather than stored it if they were a foreign student who went home for the summer, or just didn’t have a buddy who had a pickup truck. I guess when everyone takes the subway, those are in short supply.

Makes one think about getting one of those studios in NYC for a month to camp out just to see what can be had. Sort of a midcentury modern stakeout. Maybe not, as a “cheap” studio apartment in town is quite hefty, but everything is relative. I was shocked when I met someone with a $2,500 hole in a wall. They said they lived in a “rent controlled” building. Seems like that is OUT of control rent. I would need rental assistance big time if that was the going rate for 400 square feet. I don’t think the furniture would earn their keep.