The Denim Revolution

You may not know, and it may be a forgotten thing, but in Romania during the Communist regime denim was almost forbidden. Well maybe not completely forbidden but you could not find any denim clothes in the poorly equipped stores. Blue jeans however, were smuggled in by foreign students, some of whom built small fortunes by providing to the denim hunger of Romanian youth. Wearing denim was a symbol of Western fashion, of modernity, of quiet dissidence to the ugly dictatorship we went through.

In addition, it was expensive. I remember that my first pair of blue jeans was exactly half of my monthly salary as a young professional. I went to a minuscule apartment where Sara, a Columbian medicine student stacked tens and tens of such valuable pieces of cloth. I tried them on in the small bathroom and I left the building looking behind my shoulder and fearing that the Secret Police, the gruesome Securitate was after me. At the same time I had an incredible feeling of victory.

It may be not an exaggeration to say that the 1989 revolution was made by that young generation wearing blue jeans.

Sources:http://bluejeanbabycph.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/brigitte-bardot/

http://www.denimology.com/