In the Cabin John Shopping Center next to a tanning salon, B Scene is the province of cute teenagers and hot moms. They come for sequined shrugs and $120 metallic sandals; velour sweatshirt-and-skirt ensembles ($275); tube tops made of terry cloth. ("Isn't this the material you make towels with?" asks a young man, and the young woman he's with calls him an idiot.)
And they come for the jeans, found in the back third of the store, where a ladder is propped so Ilana can reach the tippy-top shelves.
Premium denim is a tiny percentage of the overall jeans market, but you wouldn't know it from the profusion of brands here. A disproportionate number have names that sound less like fashion lines and more like spiritual causes that Hollywood actors might get involved in. There's True Religion and Blue Cult, Citizens of Humanity and 7 for All Mankind. This makes a certain sense; the notion of denim-as-transcendence will ring true to any woman who has ever looked in the mirror and not recognized her own blue-clad behind.
What if we all adored our backsides? Would we achieve harmony with our bodies? Could this translate to a higher level of consciousness? Are the jeans of the 21st century helping us get there, or making sure we never do?
"I live for jeans," says Becca Walker, 33, who has between 20 and 30 pairs and recently bought some made by a company called People for Peace. They cost $285 and have the word LOVE embroidered on the butt, along with a butterfly. These made Becca an object of envy. Women at her son's nursery school were "stalking" her. Her neighbor went and bought a pair. Walker thinks the jeans were totally worth the money. "I felt a little nauseous afterwards and then I was okay," she says.
At B Scene there are dark jeans for nights out and light jeans for days in. There are white jeans with pink stitching and blue ones with turquoise-colored stones. There are jeans with worn hems to mimic the look you'd get if you let them drag under your flip-flops. There are jeans with wire in the back pockets to give them a perpetually wrinkled look. There's a style called "ripper," with the bottoms and pockets all shredded, and a style with the apocalyptic description "destroyed." There are maternity jeans with a little pouch for the belly. Soon Ilana will be getting shipments of baby jeans, costing between $80 and $180, and some extra-fancy adult jeans for $695.
There are even jeans for something InStyle magazine describes as "posterior overflow."
"They fit a little bit higher to avoid some of the spillage that we all get," Ilana says.
("Higher," of course, is entirely relative. Ilana's 18-year-old salesgirl Mandy Jasnoff puts on a pair of jeans that fasten two inches under her bellybutton. She's astonished. "I've never put on a pair of pants that's so high," she says.)
Occasionally, the store gets a newcomer to the premium denim world. This can be exhilarating and scary for the customer, like going to a foreign country without knowing a word of the native tongue.
"Did you want, like, daytime, nighttime, go both ways?" Ilana asks, surrounded by piles and piles of indigo. "Beat up, not beat up? Does a particular wash catch your eye?"
"I think, whatever?" the woman says.
