The 1970s Lifestyles and Social Trends: Topics in the News

WOMEN'S LIBERATION

Women's liberation (variously referred to as feminism or the women's rights movement) was to the 1970s what the civil rights movement was to the 1960s: the most significant social movement in the United States. The two movements shared many similarities: Both were controversial, had many opponents, and resulted in far-reaching and lasting political and social effects. Although feminism successfully sought social opportunities previously denied to women, not all women benefited. In fact, feminism negatively affected some women. In general, however, the movement improved the economic status and freedom of most women, but they still had a long way to go to achieve social equality.

One of feminism's most significant demands was gender equity in wages: equal pay for equal work. In the 1970s, increasing numbers of young women rejected the traditional role of suburban housewife, entering the workplace instead. The economic downturn in the decade forced women as well as men to seek sources of income. As a result, many older women, some of whom had never worked outside the home before, were pressured to work alongside their daughters in factories and offices.

Yet neither the young female activists nor their mothers were paid as well as their male counterparts. On average, they earned just 57 percent of the wages paid to men. Women were shortchanged further by labor laws passed at the beginning of the twentieth century that prevented women from working overtime. Moreover, like African Americans and other minorities, women often were forced to work the lowest-paid, most menial jobs.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had made job discrimination illegal. Yet the federal government agency created to enforce this law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), failed to act on behalf of women for most of the 1960s, instead focusing on minorities. Under pressure from women activists at the beginning of the 1970s, the EEOC finally began to help women workers, by filing gender discrimination lawsuits against companies. Occupational barriers against women began to fall. The U.S. Congress passed additional legislation prohibiting sex discrimination, and it also granted a tax deduction for childcare expenses in families where both parents worked. For the first time, women were admitted to military academies and Ivy League universities. By 1974, Nevada was the only state that had retained its laws limiting overtime work for women.

Although more women gained access to the workplace and its benefits, they still were not paid as much as men. And many professional women complained that regardless of their credentials or achievements, high-paying, high-prestige jobs were denied to them. Feminists believed fair employment laws alone were not enough to elevate their social status, so they sought other laws and changes. They faced strong opposition, some of it from fellow women.

Battles between feminists and their opponents reached a fevered pitch over two main issues: the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA; see box on page 106) and abortion. In 1972, the U.S. Congress passed the ERA, which stated that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Before this simply worded amendment could become part of the U.S. Constitution, thirty-eight states had to ratify it by 1979. Twenty-five states quickly approved the amendment, but organized opposition soon stalled the approval process. Led by Phyllis Schlafly and other conservatives, opponents argued that the ERA would bring sweeping social changes that would radically affect marriage, divorce, child custody, adoption, and

other areas of American family life. Such arguments were effective, raising the fear in the minds of many Americans that social change was proceeding too quickly in the country. By the end of the decade, the ERA failed to gain enough support for approval, and it disappeared from the political landscape.

Equal Rights Amendment

The U.S. Congress first considered an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923, three years after women were given the constitutional right to vote in the United States. Each year thereafter, the amendment proposal was introduced into each session of Congress but was never passed. In 1971, the proposed amendment was modified, calling for men and women to be given equal treatment under the law. This new version was approved in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 354 to 24. The following year, by a vote of 84 to 8, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of the amendment. It was then sent to the legislatures of all fifty states for ratification. To become part of the U.S. Constitution, the ERA had be approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (thirty-eight states total) within seven years.

By early 1973, twenty-five states had ratified the ERA. Then its progress slowed dramatically. By 1977, only ten more states had ratified the ERA, three short of the number needed for adoption. In 1978, proponents of the amendment successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to extend the deadline for ratification from 1979 to 1982. However, no state ratified the ERA after 1977, and three states tried to rescind or take back their original ratification votes. In 1982, the ERA's deadline passed and the amendment was defeated.

What happened? The majority of Americans, both women and men, supported the ERA. However, for a constitutional amendment to be ratified, it must have the support of a majority of legislators in each of the required thirty-eight states. That means the amendment must have broad support and little opposition. The opposition to the ERA, while initially a small minority, was extremely vocal in emphasizing several key issues that ultimately stopped ratification.

Leading the fight against the ERA was Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime conservative activist. In 1972, shortly after the U.S. Senate had passed the amendment, she had organized the National Committee to Stop the ERA. Schlafly and others who joined her cause believed the ERA, as it was written, was so vague and open-ended that it would lead to sweeping changes in American social life that would destroy families. They believed it would, among other things, lead to a loss of alimony for women in divorce cases, the drafting of women into the military, and the creation of unisex, or single-sex, bathrooms. Schlafly also seized upon the issue of states' rights, telling state legislators that the amendment would transfer state power to the federal government.

While many people thought these claims were exaggerated, enough people believed the claims to voice their concerns. This was especially true in conservative southern states. In the end, the fear of social change, real or imagined, was too much for a number of Americans, and the ERA stalled until it died.

In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a woman, as part of her constitutional right to privacy, may choose to have an abortion within the first three months of her pregnancy. The ruling divided the nation: Conservatives and religious groups denounced the decision, claiming that abortion was murder. They further felt that legalized abortion would undermine the family, allowing women to use abortion as a type of birth control. On the other hand, feminists and many other supported the ruling, asserting it was central to a new role for women in American society. Women, they insisted, have the intellectual capacity and emotional compassion to determine whether to end their pregnancy. This profound difference of opinion continued throughout the 1970s and the following decades.

Beyond the disagreements, feminism achieved several breakthroughs in employment opportunities and social status for women in the 1970s. President Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) appointed the first two women military generals in 1970. Two years later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hired its first female agent. Throughout the decade, women flooded into previously male-dominated professions. For example, female student enrollment increased dramatically in law and medical school across the country. Women not only increased their numbers in state and federal legislatures, but they also became influential politicians. Women's strength, intelligence, and grace affected all facets of American society, from sports to academia to the media.

Despite these achievements, there was a dark side to the women's movement. Working-class women were often hurt by the very reforms feminists sought. For example, divorce laws, made simpler to increase the options available to unhappy women, benefited wealthy women the most. Less financially secure women were abandoned by their husbands, who took advantage of the new, quick, no-fault divorce laws leaving their wives without alimony and often with children. These women, unprepared for the workplace, often had to settle for low-paying jobs, and they soon joined the ranks of the working poor. Even those women who could earn higher wages still had to struggle to raise their children, maintain their household, and hold their job. For decades, women have had to struggle for an equal voice in American society, and that struggle did not end in the 1970s.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: ETHNIC PRIDE AND GAY LIBERATION

Women were not alone in their fight for social recognition in the 1970s. African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans each formed their own powerful social movement: Black Pride, American Indian Movement (AIM), and Brown Power, respectively. Members of these movements sought ethnic pride and social reform, at times using violent tactics, in a society they felt was ruled by Anglo-Saxon or "white" culture. Indeed, a wave of group consciousness among members of minority ethnic and racial groups swept the country during the decade. A related, but no less important, social-justice movement was the gay liberation movement, which strove to end discrimination in American society on the basis of sexual orientation.

For African Americans, the aim of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s was social equality. The aim of the Black Pride movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, was social identity. Rejecting mainstream standards of beauty, art, and culture, African Americans tried to reclaim their African heritage. They donned dashikis and West African cotton print dresses and scarves, and they wore their hair in an Afro, or "natural," style. This growing pride in the African American community was displayed on popular television shows such as Sanford and Son (1972–1977) and Good Times (1974–1979). Yet nothing helped better express the reason for African American ethnic pride than the January 1977 miniseries Roots. Based on the novel of the same name by Alex Haley, the series, which told the story of Haley's West African ancestors, enthralled viewers of every ethnic background.

Perhaps no ethnic group suffered a greater plight in American society at the beginning of the 1970s than Native Americans. Forty percent were unemployed; ninety percent lived in substandard housing on federal reservations with few benefits of modern life or economic development. Tuberculosis, alcoholism, and suicide marked the lives of many Native Americans. To bring attention to this alarming situation, the American Indian Movement (AIM), a militant Native American group, seized Alcatraz Island (a former U.S. penitentiary) in San Francisco Bay during November 1969. For the next nineteen months, members of AIM occupied the island, protesting Native American living conditions and treaty violations by the U.S. government. The peaceful occupation made the American public aware of the Native Americans' position.

As the movement progressed, demonstrations took on a more serious and often violent tone. In 1973, at the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota (site of a massacre of Native Americans by the U.S. Army in 1890), a dispute arose over the tribal chairman, Richard Wilson. Some tribe members felt Wilson was controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and wanted to impeach him. Tensions escalated and both sides soon armed themselves for a siege that lasted ten weeks before a peaceful conclusion was reached. Federal law enforcement officials, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the national news media all had become involved in the ordeal known as "Wounded Knee II."

The militance of AIM sparked a decade's worth of change for Native Americans. In 1974, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination Act, giving Native Americans the right to control federal and educational aid on their reservations. Throughout the decade, Native Americans also challenged in court the legality of treaties with the U.S. government. Often victorious, they were awarded millions of dollars for lands illegally seized by the government over the previous two centuries.

Hispanic Americans, concentrated primarily in southwestern U.S. states and cities, were often limited to low-paying, menial jobs in which they were treated with contempt by their employers. Initially organized to seek better working conditions and higher wages for Hispanics, the Brown Power movement soon promoted social reform and ethnic pride in being Chicano. ("Chicano" comes from Mechicano, the same Nahuatl, or ancient Aztec, word from which the country of Mexico derived its name.) Spanish-language newspapers and Hispanic television stations cultivated ethnic consciousness. A Chicano renaissance emerged in arts such as theater, literature, and painting. Even network television recognized the blossoming Hispanic pride with a breakthrough sitcom on life in the East Los Angeles barrio, Chico and the Man (1974–1978).

The 1970s was a decade of heightened ethnic identity for many other nationalities as well—Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Asian Americans. Almost every immigrant group in the United States celebrated its ethnic background with parades, political organizations, and artistic and cultural productions.

Gray Panthers

Maggie Kuhn and five of her friends met in 1970 to discuss social issues relevant to them. Kuhn, then sixty-five years old, was concerned about the problems facing retirees and the elderly, and her friends shared that concern. They decided to form a group called the Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change in hopes of changing government policies and public attitudes regarding the elderly.

More Americans were getting older in the 1970s. Life expectancy in the United States rose to 69.5 years for white men and 77.2 years for white women. The American population over 65 years of age increased 20 percent in the decade, and twelve million people joined the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the nation's leading organization for people aged 50 and older.

Within a few years, Kuhn's group, renamed the Gray Panthers because of their action-oriented and often controversial manner, had over one hundred members divided among eleven chapters. In 1975, the group held its first national convention in Chicago. Continuing to grow and making their demands known through sit-ins, picket lines, and other vocal demonstrations, the Gray Panthers began to effect change. In 1978, the U.S. Congress passed laws to end age discrimination and to increase the age of mandatory retirement from sixty-five to seventy.

As awareness and acceptance of the multiculturalism of America spread across the country, gays and lesbians demanded increased tolerance also. In June 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub, and a riot between police and the patrons of the club ensued. The Stonewall rebellion triggered the gay liberation movement that would continue for decades. Hundreds of gay rights' organizations sprang up in American cities, demanding legal reform, access to public services, and an end to discrimination. To bring about social reform, many gay candidates began to run for public office. Although gays and lesbians did not find widespread public acceptance at first, their fight helped promote a new mood of tolerance in the United States.

THE RISE OF NEOCONSERVATISM AND TELEVANGELISM

As differences in culture and sexual orientation were acknowledged and accepted in American society during the 1970s, some rebels, mostly members of the baby boom generation, pushed for an even greater acceptance of alternative lifestyles. The baby boomers, born after World War II between 1946 and 1964, represented the largest segment of the population and thus had significant influence on social trends. The youth culture of the 1960s, known as the counterculture, continued to flourish in the 1970s. Young people rejected capitalism, competition, social conventions, and the work ethic of their parents. They embraced cooperation, toleration, and freedom of expression.

In contrast to their parents' belief in monogamy (one sexual partner within marriage), young people championed sexual experimentation. An

outgrowth of this was the so-called sexual revolution of the 1970s. During the decade, many young people cast aside traditional sexual restraints, ignoring many former sexual taboos: interracial dating, open homosexuality, communal living, casual nudity, and lewd language. In part because of the development of the birth-control pill and other contraceptives, sexual activity increased among the young. Sensuality and sexuality became a significant part of fashion, movies, rock music, and popular novels. Pornography became big business.

The counterculture and its revolutions in lifestyle, sexual standards, and family life alarmed not only conservatives but also some liberals. Disillusioned with the political and social changes around them, former liberal Democrats such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick became spokespersons for a social trend known as neoconservatism. They broke with their former political allies over what they perceived as a rising anti-American sentiment sweeping the country in the wake of the Vietnam War (1954–75). Neoconservatives questioned the expansion of welfare and other governmental programs they believed were putting a strain on the nation's economic productivity during a recession.

Neoconservatives also railed against what they asserted were radical reforms that had destroyed moral virtues in American society, in areas ranging from education to religion. With their concerns about contemporary social trends, neoconservatives found powerful allies in the fundamentalist Protestant churches that became politically active in the 1970s. Like neoconservatives, fundamentalist Christians reacted against the turmoil of the 1960s. Often called born-again Christians, they opposed the liberal influences and secularism (belief that religion should have no part in political or civic affairs) they felt were destroying American values.

Fundamentalists represented just one aspect of the growing emphasis on religion and spirituality felt by many Americans in the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade, a Gallup poll found that only 4 percent of Americans felt religion was important in their lives. By 1976, however, that number had risen to 44 percent. Seizing upon the growing born-again Christian movement across America, especially in the South and West, preachers took to the airwaves to spread their message. These television evangelists, or televangelists, included Jimmy Swaggert, Oral Roberts, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Billy Graham, and Jerry Falwell. Combined, they had an estimated weekly audience of twenty-four million viewers who tuned into their religious talk shows and contributed millions of dollars each year to their crusades.

In 1979, Jerry Falwell turned his religious crusade into a political one when he organized the Moral Majority. Opposing abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and the Equal Rights Amendment, this group lobbied for laws reflecting what they defined as conservative Christian values. The four million members of the Moral Majority advocated prayer and the teaching of creationism (the belief that the Bible's account of Creation is literally true) in schools and an increase in military spending by the federal government. This special-interest group exerted great influence on neoconservatives and the Republican Party, helping to shape the political landscape in the decades that followed.

THE "ME DECADE" AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW RELIGIONS

Although far more Americans cited religion as an important part of their lives in the 1970s than in previous decades, not all turned to Christianity and its various forms. Whereas Americans in the 1960s had been preoccupied with questions of social and political justice, Americans in the 1970s were concerned with self-fulfillment and personal happiness. For many, "religion" came in the form of self-therapy and psychological analysis. Almost everyone seemed to have an analyst, guru, genie, prophet, priest, or spirit guide. Writing in New York magazine in August 1976, novelist Tom Wolfe coined the term "Me Decade" to describe Americans' preoccupation with themselves in the 1970s.

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a Manhattan discotheque that was, for a few brief years, the hottest nightclub on the planet. Steve Rubell and Ian Shrager opened the dance club in 1977 in a run-down warehouse that formerly housed a television studio. Designed to appeal to the hip and trendy "beautiful people" bored by ordinary discotheques, Studio 54 admitted only a select few people deemed glamorous enough for entry. Outside, large crowds of wanna-bes stood in line for hours for a chance to be admitted or to see movie stars, famous athletes, or political celebrities. A huge success, the club earned an estimated seven million dollars in its first year.

Unable or unwilling to solve social problems, Americans focused on satisfying their own desires through health food, diets, hot tubs, and physical exercise. Many young Americans took up kung fu, aikido, yoga, tennis, jogging, massage, camping, hiking, skiing, and dancing, among other physical activities. It was a decade to "do your own thing."

More significant, the "Me Decade" reflected a sense of spiritual crisis. The counterculture had rejected traditional religion as meaningless and corrupt, so many Americans turned to Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism and Hinduism. Still others became disciples of various mystics and preachers whose teachings offered the promise of inner peace and enlightenment. Indian mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced a mantra-chanting system called transcendental meditation (TM) that promised practitioners a relaxed physical and mental state. Indian swami A.C. Bhaktivedanta founded a religious movement known as Hare Krishna. The cotton-robed followers of the movement, who worshiped the Hindu god Krishna, were most often visible on street corners or in airports, where they enthusiastically solicited funds for their group.

We Were Kung Fu Fighting

Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee's 1972 martial-arts film Fists of Fury and his 1973 follow-up, Enter the Dragon, started an American obsession with kung fu and other Asian martial arts. As with many other crazes or fads, no is quite sure why it caught on. Whatever the reason, it was extremely popular: Almost every American city and suburb boasted a storefront gym where karate, kung fu, judo, jujitsu, aikido, or some other form of Asian fighting was taught.

The American media quickly seized on the fad. On the silver screen, actors such as Bruce Lee, Tom Laughlin, and Chuck Norris were featured in kick-boxing epics. On television, the weekly western Kung Fu began airing in the fall of 1972. In the series, Shaolin priest Kwai Chang Caine, played by actor David Carradine, wandered the American West in the nineteenth century looking for his half-brother, while subduing his opponents and offering snippets of Buddhist wisdom. And on the pop music charts, Carl Douglas's Kung Fu Fighting reached number one in the fall of 1974. Although the craze for martial arts gradually cooled by the end of the decade, the Asian disciplines have remained a permanent feature of American pop culture.

Perhaps the largest of these alternative religions was the Unification Church. Founded by Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean industrialist, the Unification Church was a fusion of Asian philosophy, Christianity, and capitalism. Moon claimed to be the new messiah who would unite all the religions of the world and reinterpret the Bible. Although his missionaries (called Moonies) had been in the United States since 1960, Moon did not attract widespread attention until he transferred his headquarters to New York City and preached to twenty thousand people at Madison Square Garden in September 1974. Like Krishnas, young Moonies became increasingly visible on street corners, preaching Moon's beliefs and collecting money for the church. By the end of the decade, Moon and his church came under heavy criticism for allegedly brainwashing his young followers and making controversial financial deals.

The rising interest in religious cults like the Moonies in the United States during the 1970s was mirrored by a rising interest in the occult. Americans became increasingly interested in mysticism and parapsychology as a means to explain the nature of things. They explored satanism, witchcraft, astrology, tarot cards, the Bermuda Triangle, the lost island of Atlantis, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and extrasensory perception (ESP).

Organic Foods

With the spread of the environmental movement across the country in the 1970s came a rising interest in organic, or naturally produced, foods. What started out as a fad at the beginning of the decade soon became a staple of mainstream American culture. Concerned consumers wanted a diet that was healthy, not only for them but also for the planet. Food products produced with artificial pesticides, fertilizers, feed additives, and growth regulators were shunned in favor of those produced using such Earth-friendly farming techniques as biological pest control and crop rotation. Chemical preservatives, food additives, sugar, salt, and white flour were also avoided by the health-conscious. Natural, biodegradable, and organic were the new buzzwords for informed consumers who demanded that supermarkets stock natural foods. By the mid-1970s, items such as tofu, brown rice, lentils, sprouts, and whole-grain bread could be found on ordinary supermarket shelves.

Many Americans soon became alarmed at the popularity of religious cults, however, fearing for the safety of followers of self-described prophets and messiahs. That fear was realized tragically in the Jonestown massacre that occurred on November 18, 1978. In the mid-1950s, James ("Jim") Warren Jones had established the People's Temple, a Christian-based congregation. After moving his group to California in 1965, Jones began to adopt increasingly radical political and religious beliefs. Among other claims, he told his followers he was God. In 1977, following allegations of financial misconduct, Jones persuaded his congregation to relocate to Jonestown, Guyana. Amid reports of physical and psychological torture at Jonestown, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan of California flew to Guyana with a group of journalists and others to investigate the charges in November 1978. When the congressman and his group tried to leave the colony on November 14, they were shot and killed by cult members. Four days later, Jones presided over an enforced suicide ceremony during which all 913 of his followers drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jones died later that day from a gunshot wound, possibly self-inflicted.

FASHION: DO YOUR OWN THING

Fashions in the 1970s reflected the social attitude of the decade: traditionalism was out, self-expression was in. Choice, personality, and comfort were the fashion hallmarks of the 1970s for women. For men, work wear was replaced by sportswear; leisure was the key. And for youth, the only fashion was antifashion.

American women benefited enormously from the fashion innovations of the 1960s. In the wake of such fashion breakthroughs as psychedelic colors, miniskirts, and pants, American women had a new range of looks from which to choose. They were no longer willing to follow the lead of fashion designers, and they broke down traditional categories in fashion. The "do your own thing" attitude in clothes emphasized a woman's personality, her independence of mind, and her spirit of experimentation.

Hot pants, short shorts for women, burst onto the scene in 1971 to rival the still-popular miniskirt. New variations in pants appeared in long and short culottes that hung like a skirt, harem pants that bloused at the ankle, and knickers worn with boots. Most important, women felt free to wear a wide range of clothes to work, from pantsuits to casual sweater sets to knee-length or mid-calf-length dresses. Also popular were flowing pants, short jackets, and peasant-style blouses and skirts. It did not matter what a woman wore, as long as she could create her own comfortable style and look.

Designers quickly caught on, offering casual-dress options for women. Collections of interchangeable separates allowed a woman to create her own look that was suitable for day and evening wear. When women opted to dress in traditional men's clothes, designers responded, giving them plenty of male styles from which to choose.

For men, the most important fashion innovations in the 1970s were the increase in leisure wear and the use of new colors and fabrics. The white shirt and dark suit, the standard attire for men at work, virtually disappeared. Replacing it were double-knit and stretch-knit leisure suits in bold colors such as rose, purple, orange, and green. Wide ties in big floral prints and brightly patterned synthetic shirts often completed the look.

Throughout the decade, more and more men unbuttoned their shirts, going without ties and often without jackets. This new ethic of leisure and individuality emphasized lifestyle over work, and the lifestyle of choice was fun and relaxation. Sportswear, a category of clothing that had been growing since the 1950s, exploded in the 1970s. Unstructured jackets were worn over vests or sweaters. Rugged sportswear, once worn for hunting, fishing, or ski trips, made its way into men's weekend wear. The most popular outfit was the jogging suit, worn by joggers and non-joggers alike. It became fashionable to look like an athlete.

Young Americans, both women and men, rejected the dictates of the fashion industry, turning instead to unisex, carefree dress and hairstyles.

Faded denim jeans or army fatigues, cotton T-shirts or sleeveless tank tops, and boots outfitted youth of the 1970s. College students of both sexes continued to wear their hair long. The shag cut, short on top, longer on the sides, and flat in back, was one of the first haircuts to be popular with both men and women. A popular women's hairstyle, inspired by 1976 Olympic gold medalist figure skater Dorothy Hamill, was the short, layered wedge.

Many young women and men shopped at secondhand clothing stores and army/navy outlets. They blended old and new looks to forge a distinct counterculture style: an antique shirt with dirty blue jeans and a beret, or an Indian tunic with army fatigues. Cotton and other natural fabrics were chosen over knit blends and polyester. Self-defined fashion, not the fashion of their parents, was the uniform of American youth in the 1970s.

One new garment that captured the fancy of Americans in the decade, regardless of gender or age, was designer jeans. In the 1960s and early 1970s, a pair of dirty, torn blue jeans was the universal clothing item, especially for people under twenty-five—the antifashion statement of a generation. Deciding to capitalize on this phenomenon, designers like

Calvin Klein redesigned and repackaged jeans into a high-fashion item adorned with embroidered logos, rhinestones, and silver studs. Despite selling for three and four times the cost of ordinary jeans, designer jeans quickly became a fixture in the American jeans market.