Arts: Is the Denim Bubble Inflating Again?

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Brow Beat Is the Denim Bubble Inflating Again? By Julia Felsenthal Posted Tuesday, Jan 10, 2012, at 05:10 PM ET Last week, Vogue Daily, the online arm of the famous fashion magazine, featured "Denim under $500" in their "Steal of the month" column. Granted, Vogue has never been a bastion of practicality, and the "Steal of the Month" has always seemed like a grudging concession to recession-era economics. But long gone are the days when one could even pretend $400 for denim was "a steal"—and to use this feature to hock the uncharacteristically expensive version of something that is, for the most part, relatively inexpensive wildly misses the mark, and veers toward the downright offensive. Even taking into consideration the best and most luxury brands, I'd be hard-pressed—without Vogue's help, that is—to figure out where to buy jeans for half a grand. And I'm no stranger to the world of premium denim. For a few years in the boom days of the early aughts, I was, in fact, something of a premium-denim fashion victim. I shopped at stores with names like The Denim Lounge. I had an encyclopedic knowledge of back-pocket design—I even trotted this knowledge out at parties, as if it made me seem interesting. (Sigh.) I snapped up rhinestone-encrusted, pocket-embroidered, contrast-stitched, artificially distressed jeans like they were going out of style.  Unfortunately, for me, they were. By 2006 or so, the premium denim category was so saturated and prices so bloated that the phrase "denim bubble" was knowingly deployed by observers of the fashion market. (Michelle Leder had seen this coming ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Lithwick: The Pressure Is on the Supreme Court To Solve the Nutty Texas Redistricting Fiasco New Attacks on Romney Also Indict Shameless Capitalism. Will GOP Voters Buy Them? Why the Economy Is Still Such a Mess: Banks Won't Give Loans to Small Businesses	Advertisement
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