Cinderella Steps Out

When Huck Finn put on his patched, faded blue denim overalls to go catfishing on the Mississippi, he never dreamed that he was anticipating a fashion trend for 1953. But last week, in shops and stores across the land, no cloth was selling faster, or in more colorful varieties, than once drab, once humble denim. For the U.S. textile industry, it is the Cinderella cloth that became queen of the ball.

Denim's revolution is a product of the two-day weekend, the trek to the suburbs, and the increasing informality and casualness of U.S. living. Schoolboys started it, in the 19305, with a penchant for the copper-riveted "levis" which San Francisco's famed Levi Strauss began making for gold miners and cowhands back in 1850 (TIME, Feb. 27, 1950). High school girls quickly copied the craze. Spare-time yachtsmen found that salt water gave the deep blue levis a faded look, which became so fashionable that youngsters dumped bleach into the family wash to fade their own.

U.S. makers of denim cloth decided that if people preferred light blue denim, they had better start making it. The new material went into men's slacks, women's play clothes, shorts, golf skirts, windbreakers and children's play clothes. Companies like Erwin Mills, Inc. started experimenting with the idea of denim in new weights and bright colors.

The denim revolution was helped along four years ago by Fabric Designer Mary Shannon, fashion stylist for North Carolina's Cone Mills, biggest U.S. maker of denims. She showed that the cloth had unlimited fashion possibilities. The company brought out more than 50 new kinds --stripes, plaids, multicolored combinations. At the 1949 showing, Mrs. Shannon herself appeared in a tailor-made denim dress of her own design, set off delighted murmurs in the trade. By the following year such designers as Brigance and Jane Derby had created rhinestone-studded evening dresses and town clothes of denim. One high-fashion stylist even produced a limited collection of mink-trimmed denim suits--for California, obviously.

This year men's oxford grey denim suits created such a stir that manufacturers be gan wondering if the men's market might not eventually outstrip women and children sales. Other new uses: denim umbrel las, knitting bags, glass cases to match costumes, fancy pants (an oriental-type knee-length woman's garment for lounge wear), men's tattersall vests, women's ensembles of belts, purses and shoes. Cone Mills has 95 different shades and patterns of denim in the fall line it recently showed to buyers. Reeves, Avondale, Simatex and other mills are furiously expanding their production to try to narrow Cone's and Erwin's lead.

Their mills, which were turning out only 190 million yards of denim eight years ago, this year will produce more than 450 million yards. For the ailing U.S. cotton industry, long ago threatened by rayon and more recently by the newer synthetics like dacron and orlon, the coronation of Cinderella denim proved that where there is a way to make homely cottons attractive there is a will to buy.

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