Fashion Backwards Blog: Denim on Denim

Back in the 90s, people were bustling in denim galore – denim jackets, jeans, tops, hats, and even shoes! Remember any promotional ad for Sister Sister? At least one of the sisters was wearing something denim at all times. It was a decade staple. Fast forward to 2014, and it’s been twenty years since Sister Sister first began airing on television. Despite the change in time, denim is still evident everywhere you look.

Too much denim worn together hasn’t been as popular in the 2000s as it was in the 90s, but it is definitely back. If you go to most any fashion retail stores, you will see a selection of jeans – in various colors and shades – as well as jean jackets and tops. Although discouraged a mere three years ago, people are now wearing denim on denim; in other words, they are wearing multiple pieces of denim together, in one outfit. For example, one could wear dark blue jeans with a lighter blue denim jacket. Of course, it doesn’t stop there. You could wear denim pants or jeggings, paired with a denim button-down shirt, a denim jacket, a denim hat, denim flip flops, and accessorize the outfit with a denim handbag; if you’re daring enough to wear all that denim. Of course, denim comes in all kinds of shades too, so you don’t have to stick with the original blue to wear your favorite fabric.

Besides being a popular look to wear, denim can be viewed as a means of protest. In the 50s, it was popularized by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, which was then symbolic as the fashion of rebellious youths – denim was even banned in schools and restaurants for this reason! Too bad they didn't make a movie about that...Flashdenim anyone? Of course, by the 70s, wearing denim became normal, as we know from the bell-bottom and hip hugger fads from the “Decade Day” spirit weeks back in high school.