The passing of Gloria Vanderbilt nearly a week ago got me to reminiscing about fashion labels and how important they once were.
Yes, I got caught up in the designer jeans craze of the 1980s. If you had a Members Only jacket, an Izod shirt and jeans by Calvin Klein or Jordache or Gloria Vanderbilt, man, you had arrived. Gloria Vanderbilt was the only pair of named-after-the-designer jeans that I ever owned.
Vanderbilt -- also an heiress, socialite, actress and mom of CNN's Anderson Cooper -- died Monday at the age of 95 of stomach cancer, putting her storied life, and her jeans, back into the spotlight.
It was that decade I wrestled so much with otherwise, the decade of big hair and shoulder pads, that I first began to pine for the jeans that would let people know that this shy nerd had also arrived.
"In the eighties, we totally valued designer labels," wrote Julie Anderson in a Nov. 21, 2011, article on the website Liketotally80s.com. "Designer jeans were pricey, sure, but ... we were happy to save our pennies (and beg our parents shamelessly) for that perfect pair of high-waisted denims.
"Gloria Vanderbilts were the ultimate designer jeans of the early and mid 80s: expensive, recognizable, and skintight," the article continues. "[These] jeans were a dark, rich blue or black with white topstitching and had Gloria's signature with that Vanderbilt swan stitched on the back pocket."
I dare say that there are more than a few pairs of designer jeans that show up in those '80s-era Awkward Family Photos features that can be found at various online sites. But as Anderson indicated in her story, you would have had to whip the behind of a designer-jeans wearer if you told her she wasn't cool ... because she certainly would have been ready to fight you.
At the time, I thought that having Calvin Kleins or Gloria Vanderbilts would somehow change my life for the better. Managing to score a pair of the latter circa 1981 gave me much joy. As I recall, my Gloria Vanderbilts were a size 14 misses. I can't remember what they cost, but they were appropriately high-end. I wore them proudly ... even though, as a longtime plus-sizer who was able to wear misses, or "straight" sizes only briefly as a high schooler/young adult, I was barely able to get myself into them. But hey, they were supposed to fit tight.
Soon, like the universe, I expanded, and my "GVs" had to be put aside. My desire for jeans that put a label on my buns morphed into a desire for any jeans that would fit ... and would flatter said buns. That desire remains to this day, as finding such jeans is as much of a challenge as paying for designer jeans back in that day.
It was some years after my Gloria Vanderbilt jeans-wearing stint that one of those urban-legend rumors got out. Vanderbilt was said to have gotten up on talk-TV and stated that she didn't intend for black women such as myself to wear her jeans. I didn't believe that at the time; I figured her to be a smarter woman than that. Had she said it, I flippantly figured, it's not like the dang jeans fit long enough for me to have done her label much dishonor.
Not only was that legend bunk, but I could have continued wearing Gloria Vanderbilts. As a 2017 story at WWD.com mentions, today's GVs are made suitable for women of all shapes and sizes and were a top seller in North America in 2016. And these days, one need not hand over a firstborn in order to afford a pair: A quick Internet hunt will show that the jeans are now available for prices that ranging from $19.99 to $40. The swan symbol of yore has gone by the wayside; Gloria's signature graces the inside of the jeans, as revealed on Google and Pinterest.
So in honor of the woman whose jeans will forever be a significant part of the history of denim and played a short but sweet part of my youth, I not only offer my condolences to Cooper and the rest of Vanderbilt's family ... I may just get myself a pair of those plus-size Gloria Vanderbilt "Amanda" jeans in commemoration.
I've certainly had worse things on my buns.
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Style on 06/23/2019