ABSTRACT
Of 125 students of mine, 118 were, on the day that I asked, wearing jeans. The deviant 7, also possessed jeans, but did not happen to be wearing them. I wonder if any other cultural product-movie, TV program, record, lipstick-would be so popular? (T-shirts were as widely owned, but much less regularly worn.) Students may not be typical of the population as a whole, though jeans are widely popular among non-students in the same age group, and only slightly less widespread among older age groups. So thinking about jeans is as good a way as any to begin a book on popular culture.
