Denim jeans have a history rooted back to the days of gold mining when they were made almost exclusively for hard labor.  Flash forward over a hundred years and the cotton denim of yore has been morphed into high priced designer duds. 

Jeans now come in straight, skinny, boyfriend and even jeggings and, as of about two years ago, they would have cost you between $300 to $1,000.  Why you might ask?  Well apparently many have been asking themselves that very question because they stopped investing in those high priced jeans. 

The recession has adversely affected the designer jeans market, and the once sky-rocketing prices are now returning to earth.  “Charging $600 for jeans for no reason at all — those days are over,” said You Nguyen, the senior vice president of women’s merchandising and design for Levi Strauss & Company.  Levi Strauss is no stranger to the denim market being the originator of  blue denim jeans here in America. 

Consumers have a range of choices from Gap jeans at about $60 to a variety of designer denim now at an average of about $200.  It’s the old story of supply and demand, once the demand fell, so did the prices.  The designers rode a wonderful wave for a while, but all good things must come to an end.

Now companies are looking for ways to re-interpret and transform blue jeans, and to make them desirable once again.  I’m sure they will succeed in their efforts, but will they ever return to the free for all pricing of the past decade?  That still remains to be seen.

Preshrunk Jeans [NYT/Style]