Critics are mixed about the movie. The New York Post says “you couldn’t ask for a more fun summer popcorn movie.” But the Chicago Tribune calls it offensive and overblown.

New Tariff on American Jeans

Americans love their jeans. These cotton denim pants, generally come in blue or black. They may first have been used as work clothes for miners. Many people link jeans to American cowboys. But whatever their history, American jeans are a big business.

They also sell very well around the world. The “Made in the USA” label alone can lift the price of the pants, especially in Europe. But recently, Europe ordered an additional import tax, or tariff, on premium jeans from the United States. And the American jean industry is protesting.

Peter Kim is the founder of Hudson Jeans and an expert on high-end, American-made jeans. From his second floor office in Los Angeles he can see rows of costly jeans and Italian denim one floor below him.

“I look at denim kind of like wine. You know, you can have the same batch of grapes. How you treat it, how you process it, you can make completely different things.”

Like wine, the cost of jeans differs greatly. One pair can cost $10; another may sell for more than $200. Most people cannot pay for the most costly jeans. But, Peter Kim says those jeans still set the style for ones that cost less.

“Like high-fashion, you start in the runway, and there is almost nobody that wears these runway items. But what happens from there is that elements of that gets trickled down to contemporary fashion, mid fashion and, ultimately, into mainstream fashion.”