Unlocking the Appeal of Men's Vintage Jeans

The vintage jeans market is one that is very fluid, with trends continually changing. New styles grow quickly in popularity while last year's designs rapidly fall into the un-cool category (only to re-find a new audience several years later no doubt). It is also a market that generates huge revenues for the major brands, with powerful clothing companies, adding a jeans range almost by default to take advantage. Hence jeans may be simple, but they are big business.

If you don't believe me, let's assume the average price of a pair of medium quality jeans in today's money is £35 and now multiply that by the number of pairs of jeans you can find in your home at the moment. You can very easily arrive at a figure of several hundreds of pounds and that's not taking into account any jeans you have previously discarded, passed onto friends or sold on. That figure may surprise or even worry you. What may also surprise you is that all that expenditure does not have to be lost cash because the second-hand market for pre-owned jeans is also very vibrant and your wardrobe of un-loved jeans, whatever their style, could be sold onto new owners, generating useful funds for your next pair of denim delights.

Denim jeans vary wildly in colour, although the classic "blue jean" variety of the original Levi's is still dominant. But there were phases when very light blue colours were the norm, or stone-washed mottled fabrics were big hits. In today's stores the dark blue selvage denims from Japan's premium factories are highly desirable. These high quality denim fabrics are designed never to be washed by the owner for fear of spoiling their unique look. That makes them almost treasured items, only to be worn on the most important occasions. Of course that by definition means that more than one pair is required and other, less vulnerable, jeans are required for casual wear. All good news for those selling jeans on the high street and equally good news for those that rely on a steady flow of extra product into the vintage market.

So when you are next on the high street take a look in all the different types of shops that include denim jeans on their inventory. You will find traders of many different types, keeping their own particular slice of this varied jeans range but the selection doesn't stop there though. Venture online and you'll find that an equally diverse range of traders are supplying jeans to the internet shopper. Jeans, jeans jeans, when will ever have enough of them.

It appears that our love of men's vintage jeans will go on forever with vintage clothing stores always stocking a full range. Sue looks at the history and trends that seem to recycle in this part of the fashion business