It's In Their Jeans?

Denim isn't really a hockey fabric unless you're like Miss Lauren Perry, shown to the left, who makes customized denim jackets with hockey patches on them. I'll admit that when I was a kid playing shinny, jeans often were worn over my sweatpants because they cut the cold, winter wind better and the frozen denim would provide better protection from errant pucks than my sweatpants did. Beyond that, you don't see a lot of denim on rinks where hockey is being played for any reason, and People magazine even published an article in 2019 highlighting the problems hockey players face when trying to find jeans that fit their physiques. In saying this, would it shock you to know that a few former New York Rangers actually promoted blue jeans during the heights of their careers? Because that happened!

We'll start with the early 1980s where the New York Rangers were the center of the fashion world. Before we get there, we need to set the stage by telling you that Sasson Jeans - pronounced "Sah-soon" - was founded by Maurice Sasson and by Paul Guez in 1976. Sasson hired world-champion boxers Larry Holmes and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad to help promote their brand early in their existence with Muhammad wearing the Sasson name on his boxing attire.

Trying capitalize on the popularity of rising sports properties, Sasson looked towards the hockey world with the New York Rangers being the hot property in the US hockey scene having lost the 1979 Stanley Cup Final to the Montreal Canadiens. The players were young, they were brash, and they were in the center of universe! So, in 1980, all of Anders Hedberg, Ron Duguay, Dave Maloney, and Tony Esposito were hired by Sasson to do a commercial. You can check out this piece of Rangers history below, and I have to say it feels very dated.
You may have noted at the bottom of the commercial before fading to black that Sasson was "The Official Jeans of the New York Rangers" which seems odd considering that we see players coming to and leaving the arena in full suits. Nevertheless, the Rangers were certainly aiming for stylish while wearing their Sasson denim despite appearing in a very cheesy commercial.

Whatever was happening on the ice didn't seem to have any effect on Sasson's sales because they actually came back for a second commercial in 1981 that featured Don Maloney, Ron Greschner, Anders Hedberg and Phil Esposito! I'm not sure why Dave Maloney and Ron Duguay were dropped from Sasson's roster, but Ron Greschner was the top-scoring defenceman for the Rangers in 1981 and Don Maloney finished five points better than Dave Maloney and 14 points bettere than Duguay. Maybe Sasson was aiming for the biggest stars?
What didn't help the Rangers was the ire shown by their fans after they were eliminated by the Philadephia Flyers in five games in Round Two in 1980, and it got worse when their archrivals in the New York Islanders swept the Rangers out of the playoffs in the Wales Conference Final in 1981. Islanders fans decided to use that "Ooh-La-La-Sasson" jingle against them by changing it to "Ooh-La-La-So-Soon" as their team crushed the Blueshirts in four games. Ouch.

While the Rangers watched the New York Islanders win Stanley Cups, their agreement with Sasson expired and wasn't renewed. To make matters worse, hair stylist Vidal Sassoon sued Sasson Jeans Inc. for $25 million in 1980 for "appropriation of its name" as the two brands were pronounced the same. Clearly, there could be some confusion over what product was being promoted based on the advertising, so it was expected that Vidal Sassoon had a good chance in winning this dispute. The lawsuit, however, would be settled once Sasson agreed change how its name was pronounced in commercials, opting be called "Sah-son". Whatever money changed hands seemed to be the lesser of the two evils, but Maurice Sasson had seen enough and left the company in 1982, leaving Paul Guez as the sole owner.

As the fashion industry moved on from jeans and denim, sales plateaued and then declined for Sasson as Guez brought his brothers into the company as additional investors. This led to fights with his brothers over the company's ownership and direction, and the floundering sales and poor business decisions put Sasson into bankruptcy in 1985. In October of 1986, Sasson Jeans Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Los Angeles, essentially closing the doors on Sasson Jeans.

In one decade, Sasson Jeans had two world-champion boxers and six NHL players promoting their jeans. I don't know of many other clothing companies that would be able to afford that kind of marketing budget nowadays, but things were clearly different back in 1980. And not to be outdone, but another former Rangers star was hawking jeans in the 1980s as well, but he did so as a member of the Edmonton Oilers just before they won a pile of Stanley Cups!
That's Wayne Gretzky wearing GWG denim - Great Western Garment denim - in that commercial that came out in Canada around the same time as the Sasson commercials were hitting the airwaves in the US. Gretzky worked with the Edmonton-based Great Western Garment Company, acquired by Levi Strauss in 1961, in the same vein as the Rangers did as Strauss looked to capitalize on the denim fashion swing happening at that time. Having the up-and-coming NHL star and the surging Edmonton Oilers promoting their brand kept them in the fashion conversation during the early-1980s.

As you can see by the 1981 Great Western Garment catalogue to the left, Gretzky was a major part of their advertising campaigns duirng that era, but Great Western Garment found the same fate as Sasson. With fashion moving off denim and into other trends, the market share held by Great Western Garment started to fall as people turned to brands with more cachet. The market share continued to steadily fall throughout the 1980s and 1990s as the GWG brand was marketed more towards men in construction, trucking, farming, and other manual labour industries. While the brand would last until 2004, Strauss closed the Edmonton GWG factory, ending a 93-year history that the Great Western Garment brand had in Edmonton.

If there is one cool fact that came out of this, it's that Great Western Garment's Donald Freeland developed the stone-washed technique during the 1950s to increase softness and flexibility of the denim found in the GWG products. This was one of the reasons that GWG became popular in Canada - they were comfortable jeans to wear!

There's a fun topic on a Sunday night as "Back to School" clothes shopping is one of those topics I heard a lot about while playing softball tonight. I know clothes shopping can be awful in the best of times for people like me because I hate doing it, so having to completely outfit kids in the latest and greatest fashion trends each year is something I'm guessing a lot of parents reluctantly do.

I don't know much, but if there's one thing about fashion I do know, it's that everyone should be like Duguay, Esposito, and Gretzky by having a good pair of jeans in their closet!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!