Power jeans are increasingly common in high-ranking business and political circles. Indeed, jeans are now a legitimate part of the global power-dress lexicon, worn to influential confabs where the wearers want to signal they’re serious—but not fussy—and innovative.

The look started with the young but has crossed into gray-haired circles. In preparation for a meeting with the U.S. president of Swiss watchmaker IWC, Larry Seiden, a 56-year-old fine-watch collector from San Jose, Calif., bought a pair of black Agave jeans from a high-end boutique. “They tailored them for me and I have to tell you, I really love them,” he says. “Now I’m thinking of getting another pair in blue denim.”

Jeans are recruiting new fans among even dressy executives. “I’m not really a jeans guy,” said Gilles Mendel, chief executive and designer of J. Mendel furs and evening wear, not long ago, sitting in his New York office. Still, he went with a snug set of dark blue Acme jeans under a black Dior blazer.

Associated Press

Many leaders wear jeans for a power look, like Barack Obama

Chosen well, jeans can suggest the wearer is confident and modern. Traditionally cut blue jeans carry a whiff of the laborer about them, so denim on a leader suggests a willingness to roll up the sleeves and dig in. There’s also something of the rebel in a pair of jeans. In the boardroom, that can read as creative.

But jeans must be carefully paired with a pressed shirt and good shoes to be elevated to business class. And some industries haven’t (yet) become open to denim as power wear. Banks and accounting-firm boardrooms, for instance, remain decidedly woolen. New York-based career adviser Jonscott Turco says jeans are generally a “no-brainer” in the media, manufacturing and creative industries, but not in financial services and law firms.

Is denim the new black for the jet-setting executive?