The
IN-JEAN-UITY
of Racism

Thursday August 28, 2025

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Images from 2024 and the 2004 article

“Sydney Sweeney has great jeans…. and she got them at American Eagle”. 

In the ad campaign, Sweeney, Hollywood’s latest Stepford and Repeat 😉 talks about how “genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality, and even eye colour” as she suggestively zips up her fly while reclining on a chaise.

Yawn. 

From ABC [Aus]:
“US jeans brand American Eagle is facing accusations its new ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney is “tone deaf” and promotes eugenics theory. The advertising campaign, which launched this week, features the blonde-haired and blue-eyed actor dressed in denim and it bears the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
The company saw a 10 per cent surge in sales after the advertisement’s release.
However, the campaign has faced mixed reviews online, with some social media users saying it alludes to theories of racial superiority.“
 
Delusions aside, [“superiority” I mean, come. ON. HOW?] the AE/SS ad is nowhere near as blatantly exploitative as the ‘classic’ 70s jeans ad with the then 15yo Brooke Shields starred in for Calvin Klein. 
“you wanna know what comes between me and my Calvin’s? Nothing.”
 
You know what’s nothing? That phrase. Nothing that is in comparison to this article that describes a TWELVE YEAR OLD Brooke as “sultry” and that’s the safest word there 
 
WARNING: Unclench jaw and fists when reading.
 
At least Sweeney is in her late 20s, and  but… but…the ad is outdated. 
From my half a century existence pov. I have seen it all before, but generational markers remind me that ads are not made for the old and experienced, they’re made for the young and impressionable. 
My gripe is this; does every generation require the same trials and tribulations? Does every generation need to be exploited? Do the old ones just pass on the same bad habits of conditioning?
The ad is outdated because sex should no longer be used to sell products. Commercialising sex has royally fucked people up. 
 Speaking of royal, Sweeney’s ending line “my jeans are blue” isn’t just about blue jean to eye coordination. 
 
Those cliches and fallacies are thick, like Euro blood being blue, a myth that is said to have originated with the rich, powerful families of Castile, descendents of Germans, in medieval Spain. They were proud of their “pure Gothic” ancestry, claiming that the blueness of their veins against their pale skin was proof of their “pure, never intermarried with another race, race“.
Goth please. 
 
Sure, the paler the skin the more blue the veins can look but, it’s an illusion. 
Everyone’s blood is dark red in veins, darker than the blood that runs through the arteries. Vein-blood is darker because it lacks oxygen. Veins appear blue because of the way light rays get absorbed into skin and the way our eyes process light waves and colour.
 
Red light has a longer wavelength so when it hits skin the waves reach deeper into the skin, where.the red blood absorbs the red light, which is both cool and scary. 
Blue light doesn’t travel as deep as red light does due to its shorter wavelengths. Our skin deflects the blue light and our optics catch that deflection and process the veins as blue, instead of red.
Nothing special.
We are all blue bloods.
 
Superiority based on optical illusions, screens, guns, bombs, stats, smoke and mirrors, blue jeans, blonde chicks, everybody raging at the machine, machine’s sales go up because somehow, for some reason, people keep buying the illusions… the ingenuity of racism. Suppress to increase demand.
 
American Eagle knows that.
 
By the way did you know that White America’s national bird was only made official in 2024? Bald faced lies since 1782.
 
From Wikipedia:
“The founders of the United States were fond of comparing their new republic with the Roman Republic, in which eagle imagery (usually involving the golden eagle) was prominent. On June 20, 1782, the Continental Congress adopted the design for the Great Seal of the United States, depicting a bald eagle grasping 13 arrows and an olive branch with thirteen leaves with its talons.”
From Wikipedia:
“The recurring number 13 refers to the 13 original states. The arrows and olive branch together symbolize that the United States has “a strong desire for peace, but will always be ready for war” (see Olive Branch Petition).”
 
When one is always ready for war, one sees enemies in every shadow, therefore one is always at war, the olive branch becomes a weapon. 
I just made that up but here’s something I prepared earlier, originally published in Cafe Society magazine in August 2004 and still relevant.

IN-JEAN-IOUS

August 2004

We all have one, maybe 2, and if you’re like me, too many.  It’s our common ‘denim-inator’. From simple origins to simply essential wardrobe staple, nothing else is capable of imparting the one for all camaraderie, the ‘vox populi’ spirit, like jeans.  
 

Think about your favourite (yes, I know…) politician worth their fake salt of the earth handshake, he/she instantly becomes more trustworthy when seen in a pair of jeans, so their spin doctors tell them.  Or how about when the hoi-polloi slums it?  Royalty, Hollywood or otherwise, knows the musketeer creed power of jeans.  So they’re probably wearing a pair of Seven’s that would cost you and me a mortgage payment but still… they’re just like us dude!

We’re spoilt for choice in Australia; Sass and Bide, Bettina Liano, Tsubi, Just Jeans and scores more, we can choose from an impressive range of local and international names to adorn our butts and express our personalities (apparently ones character can be analysed by the shape of ones butt. Ass-trology!).

From their origins as pure workwear, jeans have spread through every level of the fashion spectrum, from Ralph Lauren to Target and everything in between. Embraced internationally for their unmatched comfort and appeal, they have survived the passing of both trends and time, capturing the mood of each subsequent decade.

Think sixties slims, seventies flares, eighties stonewash, nineties hipsters, ‘noughties’ bumsters (don’t get my editor started on this; “atrocious, plain ugly!” quote unquote). Think emancipation of woman, solidarity of man…a pair of jeans is the uniform for the citizens of Planet Down To Earth.  

So how did this ubiquitous paragon reach its standing as the Euroworld’s most popular versatile garment?

Recently Levi & Co were in hot water with the divine arbiters due to their ‘Born Again’ campaign, a reproach that will guarantee through the roof sales.

May 2003 marked the 150th anniversary of Levi Strauss’ revolutionary garment but the seeds were sewn (!) way before that. 

The word ‘jeans’ derives from a kind of material that was made in Europe in the 16th century.  The word ‘denim’ comes from ‘serge de Nimes’ (cloth from Nimes) made in a town in France about 300 A.D.

Levi Strauss founded his dry goods company in 1853 in northern California during the gold rush.   The miners needed strong pants that wouldn’t rip and Levi found a tailor to make the pants with canvas Levi provided.   The pants were a success so Levi asked his brothers’ to send more canvas and the fabric they shipped was heavy cotton material called denim.  Pants made of this denim not only were popular with the miners, but also with Geneose sailors and the pants were nicknamed “jeans” after the Italian city of Genoa.  

By the 1860s’ men all over were wearing “those pants of Levi’s” because of their durability and comfort.  In 1872 Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor, wrote to Levi Strauss & Co. suggesting adding metal rivets to reinforce the seams and pants pockets from tearing away.  The legend was sewn, riveted and delivered.

After World War 2 and the major changes in society denim pants became more associated with the leisure activities of a new prosperous America.  Rugged but relaxed, they stood for “liberty” and a bright future.   And for women, they represented freedom, feminism and femininity.  

Hollywood’s film stars began wearing jeans in the late 1920s/early 1930s in Western movies, which fuelled the popularity of jeans but in the 1950s, the wholesome Western image of jeans turned “bad boy”. 

Movies would show denim on the juvenile delinquents and bad bikers. Cult heroes James Dean, Marlon Brando and yes, Elvis sulked, snarled and gyrated in white T and jeans and were instantly copied by the rebellious (and those who wanted to be) younger generation.  Who can deny the appeal?  The ensemble is still considered the ultimate in casual uni-sexiness.  

The influence of Euro icons of entertainment rings true, more so, today. From Brooke Shields and her closeness to Calvin to The Boss ‘Born in the USA’, Charlie’s Angels, supermodels, superheroes, rock stars, sports stars…we can inherit their jeans.

Naturally, anything original must be cloned.  Wrangler and Lee were born and the rest of the world followed.  If you had a few months free to read this then I would list the jeanswear brands available now.  America may have started it all but Australians wholeheartedly embraced and embodied the jeans ethos with companies like Gowing and Just Jeans stocking their shelves in the 70’s with the coveted garments and cementing the laconic, iconic Aussie attitude.  

Jeans now have status as a wear anywhere garment and denim is omnipresent, bags, boots, even ballgowns.   Countless magazine articles are printed to guide one’s purse and posterior to perfection and we can rest assured that jeans will always be the new black.

It’s all about The Quest for True Cool, which differs with each demographic.  The census is divided between those that think hipsters are ‘it’ (teenagers) and those that don’t (non-teenagers). 

There’s also the quest for fit. Buying the right pair of jeans can be as harrowing as buying a house. 

Not just the look and feel but for those who care about these things the label and accompanying price is a status tattoo.
True story. A sartorial Sherlock can tell by your choice of jeans not only how hip you are but also how narrow-hipped, trendy, skinny, curvy, daring, with-it, successful, nostalgic, conservative you are. They tell the world, how much you earn, your age, what magazine you read, your postal code and how you like your coffee. 
 
Of course the system can be fooled.  Right now I’m wearing my step-daughter’s Roxy jeans. Surf chick I’m not… but I do like to make waves.
 
Bottom line… jeans unite us but also describe us.
Oh yes, we are one but I’m an individual, it’s in my jeans.
 
By Sandhya D. Nand

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