Parisian Aesthetics and the Blue Jean Prt. 1

           

The Blue Jean and Other Icons

(or How Thread has Replaced Handwriting)

           Gustave Eiffel built le Tour Eiffel in 1889. He melted down all the cast iron pans in France and stuck them together with his bare hands. He worked only in the rain. After the tower’s completion, Gustave jumped off in a homemade Wing Suit made from the bodies of a thousand bats sewn together. He dies.

Héctor Guimard was the artist behind the Green entrances to the Paris Métropolitan.  His attention to continuity and natural forms inspired the aesthetic of turn of the century Paris. To achieve the look of the Métro entrances, he conspired with Lizards in Japan over 3 years. The reptiles were shipped to Paris wrapped in Silks of The Orient and began work on the structures. They were each given an ivory sewing needle and industrial strength embroidery thread to conduct their work.

            After the completion of the Métro entrances, the lizards we’re set free in Los Angeles, California. They crawled around denim factories and textile mills until Jim Morrison turned 19 in 1962. All the Lizards had the urge to return to the city of their iconic work. They crawled in Jim’s pants and rejoiced when he died in Paris. For they were free from their Dictator, the Self described King of their Species.

            There was an influx of Cafés immigrating to Paris from foreign lands. During the Art Nouveau movement, while the lizards sewed Portals, Cafés mulled around Monet’s flower fields. The ether of impressionism descended on the city, riding the backs of dead cattle heading to market. The Cafés were disguised in the clothing of beggars and the accouterments of the rich. The death of Proust’s Bourgeoisie prompted their insurgence into Parisian Culture.  They sauntered into buildings and claimed urban space for The Social betterment of Hungry Artists.

            After a while, it was obvious that the cafés were bound to win the long battle for creative space. Parks and Universities slumped through two world wars. With their mirrored walls and rituals, the cafés signed contracts with novelists and got famous. Ernest Hemingway sent them postcards from his sailboat.

            The blood of 19^th century revolutions had dried in Paris. Baudelaire got bored and invented Modernism after the Fleur De Lis went out of style. Melodrama and Spirutuality were on the fade out. Romanticism hung in attics, sewn into the bustles of beach holiday dresses and steel bolted corsets. Romance and Sensuality parted ways for a number of decades. The divorce between amorous love and physical pleasure turned the 1950’s into a petri-dish of orgasm retention and early marriages. When the Rolling Stones were banished from England, and Parisian girls were seducing their professors and their parent’s friends, America experienced a Blue Jean renaissance.

            Exile on Main Street was recorded a French basement in 1972 and marked the moment when Country Blues Rock and Roll was perfected by Non-Americans. The sound of having “the desert in one’s toenail” invaded the Levis of hundreds of thousands of young people.

            This was the 3^rd or 4^th decade of symbolizing youth rebellion through the wearing of blue jeans. Denim was loosing its edge. Culture was forced to re-write its relationship to adornment. The Rolling Stones had the capacity to be cowboys and David Bowie’s gender was on permanent vacation. Charles Manson had been a poet a few years ago.  In an era of increasing styles of identity, Jeans became a canvas for the imagination.

            Romance was reasserted with pinpricks and embroidery thread. Sensuality was translated into textile landscapes sewn onto thighs and asses of jeans. Denim, like paper, could carry the language of stories. The difference between letters and stiches faded. People wanted to look at something to know it. Culture gazed towards television screens for its stories. Clothing was being manufactured faster than ever. The game of Dress up was renewed. The Blue Jean, the fabric of American landscape, was a basis for patchwork, embroidery and appliqué. The versitilty and diversity of American Identity was leveled in in the cotton pill of pants. The Great American Novel was stretched to include the work of weavers.

            “Eventually, my shorts became my autobiography on Denim.” (73, American Denim)

            People young and old experienced Material as a second skin, as true and as effective a story telling medium as language.