It ’s the 1990s . You ’re a cool , coxa skateboarding teenager string up out with your friend wassail someEcto - Coolerand doing revolutionary moves on half - pipes . Suddenly , an adult appears and asks you to take off your pants . Do you order your parent something foreign is underway ? No , because that adult is a selling executive for JNCO denim engage in a little grassroots merchandising , andJNCO jeansare thetrendiest fashion itemgoing . Everyone wants them — and he ’s got sample .
Theseultra - wide - legged jeansmight look nonsensical today toMillennials(Gen Z , maybenot so much ) . But back in the twenty-four hour period , JNCOs were the pants that defied authority … as well as common sense and many shoal dress code .
Dressed for Success
Haim Revah was born in Morocco and raised in France . When he was a small fry develop up in the seventies , Haim , who later went by the name Milo , watched a lot of American television likeStarsky and HutchandCharlie ’s Angels . To Milo , America was full of highly full - looking police officers who put on a lot of blue jean on the business . But that was n’t the only reason Milo got concerned in fashion . His father was in the denim sales stage business , so when Milo and his younger brother , Yaakov ( know as Jacques ) prompt to Los Angeles , California , as adults , getting into the apparel plot was a natural paroxysm . By day , they studied the business . At Nox , they learned English with the assistance of a tutor .
But one does not simply get into way . It ’s a cutthroat business with plenty of competition . So how did the Revah brothers do it ? In 1985 , with $ 200,000 in rescue , they started a company called Revatex , and their approach was simple but effective . Most retailers who ordered private - label habiliment and rebranded it had to wait about six month for overseas manufacturing business to fulfill orders . But the Revahs owned a mill based aright in Los Angeles and could replete orders in just 8 week . That meant their client could have them produce more of what was selling and less of what wasn’t — and quickly — make Revatex an invaluable mate .
Revatex had a style , but they call for a marketing hook . To capture theurban feeling of the jean , they enlisted Los Angeles graffiti artist Joseph Montalvo , who go by the nickname Nuke , to plan a logotype they could slap on the dungaree . They settled on the nameJNCO , though it was never made explicitly exculpated what the letters stand for . Some say it was an acronym for Judge None , Choose One , while otherssaid it meantJourney of the Chosen Ones . It also might have meant Jeans Company . The Revahs never addressed it because they just ever gave interviews , preferring to let the commercial-grade side of the business take a backseat to what they hop would become a spicy newfangled trend . It did , but not in the fashion anyone expected .
Bagging It
JNCOs debuted in 1993 — and for a long time , not much happened with them . The jeans were a steady seller in specialty market and had a home at pop mall brandMerry - Go - Round , where the Revahs had an existing kinship with emptor . The stores were able to aim the trendy teen shopper that JNCOs needed to become a success . But by the early 1990s , Merry - Go - Round had become a dupe of its own success , expanding too rapidly to support business concern with over 1500 locations of its various brands across the country . After lose $ 46 million in 1993 , they were forced to announce bankruptcy . By 1996 , they were waste all of their store and offering steep markdowns on unsold inventorying , include JNCOs .
Losing their major retailing pardner turn out to have a ash grey facing for Revatex . All of those JNCOs being sold at a discount were snatched up by dress shop , who resold them at regular price and introduced the jeans to a whole young market .
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At the same time , the Revahs decide to recruit a marketing guru list Steven Sternberg , who had successfully madeB.U.M. Equipmenta big name in vesture . Sternberg was blunt in his assessment of JNCOs . He explain that the Revahs needed to pay much more attending to the suburban market so as to rise the firebrand . To try out this hypothesis , he ferment to the stock - bearers of suburban counter - refinement : surfers and skateboarder . If they thought JNCOs were nerveless , well , so would the majority of other teenagers . To turn up his item , Sternberg went to a breaker trade show in Orlando and set up a JNCO kiosk at a hotel across the street from the convention . He take orders for $ 120,000 worth of ware from skate and surf shops . JNCO jeans were about to see the interior of meet rooms all over the res publica .
Off the Cuff
After Merry - Go - Round imploded , JNCOs started springing up at cool mall shops everywhere , from Ron Jon Surf Shop toPacific Sunwearto Hot Topic . Most of these stores did n’t even stock Levi ’s or Wranglers . They specialized in brands that felt a small underground , with names like Menace . There , shopper would be confronted with jeans that did n’t adjust to the received point stage or acid - washed smell . They had logos , cannonball along stripe , and neat silhouettes .
JNCOs were n’t grownup jeans ; they were denim for teens who wanted to rebel against adults . And there were more rebels than ever . In the1990s , 31 million stripling were going denounce an norm of 54 times a year and buy eight to 12 pairs of jeans annually . It was a serious time to get into the teen - aim denim game .
The secret was in the wide branch . Typical jeans have a manacle about 16 column inch in circumference with pockets 6 inches mystifying . While the most popular JNCO manner was 23 inch , the troupe offered versions exceeding 40 inches . At one point , you could corrupt a 69 - inch opening , which was more like take two wench attach to your knees . Some pocket were 17 inches abstruse . A JNCO wooden leg was so wide and hang so low to the flat coat that the cuffs could altogether isolated shoes and hitch put away chewing gum on the pavement .
Many teens bought JNCOs to get a taste of insurrection , but that was n’t their only appeal : child compared them to shorts , suppose the lack of a tight ankle cuff made them feelmore comfortable . In a 1998 survey conducted by Teenage Research Unlimited , teen named JNCOs the 12th cool brand , behind companies likeNikeand Tommy Hilfiger but ahead of Calvin Klein andMountain Dew .
In 1995 , sales of JNCO blue jean were report to be around $ 36 million . By 1998 , the company ’s sales were $ 186.9 million . At one distributor point , JNCOs were responsible for for 10 percent of all sales at Pacific Sunwear . But the edges were beginning to frazzle .
Dirty Laundry
Like any adolescent tendency , adult were n’t unhinged about JNCOs . In fact , they tried toban them . At least , some school did .
The wide - legged denim acquaint a hazard to scholar , who might trip over their own garb . The cuffs were also prone to being worn down , which some module found less than attractive to the eye . Some administrators in Orange County even consider students could hide weapons in the cuffs , though there were never any documented case of kids stowing contraband in their JNCOs .
Kids violating frock computer code were generally asked to change into a gym uniform or call their parents and have them bring a change of dress . One student , talk toThe Los Angeles Times , claimed he had a booster who was force to hit their rave pants and put on pants so tight that he “ could n’t kick a football . ”
Revatex had another problem that only come with success : Copycats . blade like KikWear introduced extensive - leg jeans and take up some of that newfangled market part . be brands like Lee tried a modestly blanket leg , though nothing close to the massive legs offered by JNCO .
At least those attempt were legal . When Revatex executive land in Chicago to meet with retailers , they found some computer storage already selling what was purportedly legitimate Revatex dress — but the clothing was counterfeit . Although the company hired private probe firms to track down the culprit , they had already taken away some worthful business organization .
But counterfeiting was n’t the worst of it . JNCOs would presently be threatened by the very forces that had made them a success in the first place — the alter taste of teen trendsetters .
Faded Glory
Revatex had their best year ever in 1998 , with gross revenue approach $ 200 million . Just one year later , sales had plummet to $ 100 million . Part of it was the fact that Revatex had too many order to keep up with demand , storm some retailers to get important back - to - shoal stock of late . Not wanting to upset their cooperator , Revatex wound up buy some of the stock-taking back .
But the real problem was that JNCOs were meeting the same fate as every trend . If something gets pop enough , itstops being cool .
When JNCOs found widespread success at major mall chain , it was severe to maintain the form of heel counter - polish charm the steel was build on . Jeans that were once endorsed by utmost jock and seen at RAF were now being sell at J.C. Penney — where , by the way , they were very big Peter Sellers . The more nipper were turned on to JNCOs , the more other minor were turned off .
Revatex judge to annul the fickle gene . They branch out into khakis — which also might have gotten around some school dress codes on a technicality — and offered shoes and top . They lead off market to teen girl , which had n’t originally been their focus . But their teen overlord were already beginning to move away from the style . Baggy jeans were out ; drawing string and payload pants were in . Pacific Sunwear was one of several stores that had to finally mark down JNCOs just to clear out their inventory . At Gadzooks , the $ 48 to $ 58 jeans were lowered to $ 29.99 . The skate aesthetic had been subdue by Polo and Tommy Hilfiger .
The real blow came from no less an authority than Cindy Levitt , a product manager for Hot Topic , who said the chemical chain start to care when JNCOs started prove up in other shopfront . They were , in Levitt ’s words , “ uncool , ” which must have pierced JNCO devotees like a tongue in the heart .
By 2001 , Revatex had close their monolithic 10,000 - square - infantry factory in Los Angeles , shifting much of their yield to local contractile organ . By 2003 , the Revahs had for the most part stepped away from JNCOs , with different licensees reviving it periodically over the years . But in 2019 , Milo Revah returned to the blade and relaunched it with the assist of his girl , Camilla , offering a line of product up to a classic 50 - column inch leg in an cause to beguile an older and possibly more nostalgic client .
But why did JNCOs resonate in the first place ? They actually had a hard-nosed app — if you were a skateboarder . The dungaree could easy check over kneepads or Rollerblades , make them easy to wear if you wanted to skate in stealth mode . But for most kids , they did n’t have any gearing to veil . They just wanted to adopt what they perceive to be the style preferred by those on the outskirt of society — or at least the fun , relatively secure surgical incision of the outskirts that appealed to suburban adolescent . The more adults quetch , the more kids want to wear out them . JNCOs were just the late in a long air of way trends , from bobby air-sleeve to bell bottoms , that announced a kid had their own identity and could make their own choices . Vintage JNCO jeans might still look dizzy to some , but that ’s precisely the reason they mat up so flop back in the ’ 90s to others .
This story has been adapted from an episode of Throwback on YouTube .
A version of this storey run in 2021 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
