Sep. 29, 2025 at 10:07 am

Denim Doesn’t Care About Your Hot Takes (And That’s Why It’s Still Hot)

Denim Doesn’t Care About Your Hot Takes (And That’s Why It’s Still Hot)

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If fashion has a favourite punching bag, it's denim. Every few seasons, a fresh crop of trendsetters swoops in to brand jeans “cheugy” – too pedestrian, too obvious, too basic. Skinny jeans get canceled like a trend report in a rapidly shifting fashion pulse forecast. Low-rise becomes the devil's hemline. Baggy is brilliant, then blasé. The fashion industrial complex loves nothing more than a good denim death certificate.

Yet here we are, deep into 2025, watching this indigo insurgent thumb its belt loops at every obituary. Denim has died a thousand glamorous deaths and returned each time with a new face – bleached and acid-washed in the '80s, shredded in the '90s, slung dangerously low in the Y2K years, shrunk into skinnies for the aughts, reimagined in straight-leg minimalism for the 2010s, and now puddling at the ankles in Gen Z's oversized proportions. Denim plays the long game, wearing the last laugh at our hot takes, and still remains fashion's forever fabric.

The Great Denim Scandals (And Why We Keep Coming Back)

When Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis riveted their work pants in 1873, they built utility – not iconography. Yet within decades, denim was courting scandal. James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause jeans triggered school bans in the '50s; Gloria Vanderbilt's designer pairs in the '70s scandalised purists; and the ripped, acid-washed styles of the '80s turned heads and raised eyebrows across conservative circles.

The 2010s brought us the Great Skinny Jean Wars, with everyone from fashion bloggers to your mother having opinions about appropriate leg openings. Then came 2021's great skinny jean cancellation – Gen Z collectively decided millennials' beloved second skin was officially over. Fast forward to 2025, and guess what's quietly creeping back into the zeitgeist? Those same "outdated" skinnies, now vintage and therefore acceptable again.

The low-rise revival reopened old wounds around body politics and Y2K nostalgia, but the juiciest drama is playing out in denim campaigns right now. American Eagle knew exactly what it was doing with "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," letting Sydney’s denim-clad curves do all the talking – a tagline that doubled as a cheeky pun and a sly jab at fashion's obsession with body ideals (and, in the process, stirred enough outrage to earn its place in denim’s hall of almost-scandals). Gap, meanwhile, set the internet on fire with KATSEYE's "Better in Denim," riding the K-pop wave straight into a cultural frenzy proving once again that it only takes a viral moment to remind us denim has never been just about fabric or silhouette. It’s a cultural touchstone, woven into the fabric of society as both refuge and statement.

The Dirty Secret Denim Won't Talk About (But Still Keeps Selling)

Denim's devil-may-care attitude extends to its environmental rap sheet, and frankly, it's not pretty. Each pair of jeans guzzles around 1,800 gallons of water and dumps chemical cocktails into rivers. The indigo that gives denim its iconic hue? It's responsible for turning waterways blue in ways that would make environmentalists weep. Fast fashion has turned this once-durable workwear into disposable trash.

Yet denim shrugs off sustainability scandals like water off a duck's back. Brands slap "eco-friendly" labels on recycled cotton blends and organic alternatives, but the machine keeps churning. Consumers preach about ethical fashion while queueing up for the latest drop. Denim knows we're hypocrites and it's counting on it. We'll virtue-signal about sustainability on Instagram, then immediately screenshot that influencer's vintage bell-bottoms for our shopping list. Denim doesn't judge our contradictions; it profits from them.

From Workwear to Couture: The Great Runway Invasion

The ultimate coup in style’s endless game of musical chairs? Denim's journey from factory floors to the front rows of haute couture. What began as sturdy work pants for miners and railroad workers has quietly staged the most successful takeover in sartorial history. This is the fabric that fine establishments once banned, that society columns ignored, and that editors dismissed as too rough around the edges for serious consideration.

The transformation has played out across the style circuit’s biggest stages in recent seasons. Diesel made headlines by carpeting its Milan runway with 14.8 tons of recycled denim scraps. Acne Studios blurred reality with trompe-l'œil pieces mixing black-coated denim and leather. Valentino elevated workwear into luxury under Alessandro Michele, while Chanel sent out jeans decorated with sparkling rhinestones.

In New York, double denim dominated Spring/Summer 2025 shows with pleated and strappy details. Versace, Alexander McQueen, and Isabel Marant all wove denim into their collections. Copenhagen's Helmstedt offered patchwork jeans and jumpsuits adorned with alien and mushroom brooches, proving denim's global runway conquest was complete.

So go ahead, declare denim dead again. Because denim couldn’t care less about your hot takes. It never has, and it never will. From the jeans that fit like a second skin, to jackets that can take a beating and still look cool, from boots that strut with every step, to handbags that carry a quiet swagger—denim has given us wardrobe staples that refuse to fade. And that, perhaps, is why it remains fashion’s most enduring love affair.

Here are the denim that deserve a place in your closet –

Diesel