Jams were a fashion status symbol. They were basically just surfer shorts made out of the most garish pattern and colored fabric they could find. They were a part of a resurgence of surfer style clothing of the eighties along with clam diggers.
I never had a official pair of jams, just plain old super garish shorts.
Here’s a link to one of the best and probably only comics done about Jams. It is by a great cartoonist who goes by the name Dharbin.
(Make sure you click on the :next” link a the bottom of the pages to read the whole story)
Enjoy!
I didn’t have an official pair of Jams, but I did wear my knock-off pair all the time, ignoring the fact that they didn’t match my outfit or the situation. (I wore them to Boy Scout meetings all the time.)
Ha! Ha! Hilarious! They must have been less popular out here on the west coast huh? It’s basically the way that everyone dresses everyday…
Ooooh I owned a couple pairs of shorts inspired by them. One of them was bright red with yellow pineapples on them. No idea what I was thinking wearing those things. Hideous!
We all made fashion mistakes back then!