Distressed jeans

Once upon a time, if your jeans had stains and/or holes in them, this meant it was time to throw them out and buy a new pair of jeans. But today, this probably means you bought them that way. In fact, it is becoming hard to find jeans without at least some type of distressing.

If I were to try to make sense of this strange fashion trend, I would argue that, in the past when jeans cost a lot of money relative to poor people's income, wearing distressed jeans meant you were too poor to afford jeans that were in better condition. But today, using child labor in third world countries, brand new jeans are easily affordable even to the poorest of Americans. So today, the rich people wear distressed jeans because they are more expensive to manufacture. First the jeans have to be manufactured the regular way, then additional labor is required to distress them.

Distressed jeans seem related to untucked shirts. They both display lack of neatness. Dressing neatly is no longer cool. I even heard that's it's now considered dorky if your clothes are ironed. Does anyone know if this is true?

Comments

[Peter]

I would imagine that the higher prices of distressed jeans result from higher demand rather than from higher manufacturing costs.

Distressing jeans isn't all that hard or costly. Have you ever bought a pair of jeans and they had a small, round piece of pumice in the pocket? Pumice is pretty much free. That is what is used for some of the processes to achieve wear, fading, etc...Enzymes don't cost too much either.

There was even a brand of jeans years ago that had all these little holes in them. The manufacturer, a boutique outfit of some kind, would lay the jeans on the ground and fire a .22 rifle to make the holes. I'm not making this up. I was clicking around the internet trying to find info on them because they were from pre-internet days and I found these guys, but they seem pretty new.

www.gambinoapparel.com/apparel_home.htm

I don't know if they use a real firearm either. Look for Mr. Gambino at the Joisy Shore dis summa' you stunad!

HS, stay away from the acid wash. Iron your clothes too, because your mom would not want you going out like that.

[Alexander]

I am in high school and many of the "popular" kids wear these distressed jeans. I agree with you, I think it is stupid. Despite my beliefs on the matter, I still conform (however I try not to get the jeans with holes in them). I conform because it is geeky to have new looking jeans and a tucked-in shirt, and I care about what people think of me. I don't want to be a geek, I'm already enough of a loser for reading books for fun... but that is a different issue.

[trumwill]

I don't typically like jeans with a hole in them, but I can understand the appeal of "worn"-looking jeans. I actually dislike new jeans because it feels like it's all downhill from there. These perfectly good jeans are going to get something irremovable spilled on them, they'll get faded, belt looks will come off, and so on. If I buy the jeans like that already then I don't have to worry about trying to keep them in good shape. It's entirely illogical, but it's nonetheless how I feel.

Of course, buying them off the rack that way is a last resort. Much better to go to a thrift store where you can buy them for $3. Unfortunately I'm an unusual size so it takes too many trips for me to find what I want and I end up just buying new jeans at Walmart instead and deal with the sorrow of depricating them.

I actually feel the same way about cars. My current car has a huge dent on the driver's side door. I love that because it distracts from any future mistakes I make with the car and ding it up.

Alexander, just kill yourself now. Reading books for fun!? I mean come on!

[Peter]

Reading books for fun!? I mean come on!

Some books would be okay to read.

[Spungen]

Once upon a time, if your jeans had stains and/or holes in them, this meant it was time to throw them out and buy a new pair of jeans. But today, this probably means you bought them that way.

This is just cycling back from 1990. You sound surprised; didn't this make it back East the first time around?

Re the ironing, I think one commenter said you shouldn't iron creases in your jeans. Yeah, that would be dorky. I haven't heard you should have wrinkled clothes though.

Distressed jeans and wrinkled clothing are probably two trends best left to the kiddies. Doubt we'll see Matthew Broderick in either.

[GOP Lurker]

I'm basically OK with artificially discolored jeans, but holey or frayed jeans are retarded.

From what I've seen the wrinkled thing is subtle. Basically, hang up your shirt after washing it but don't iron it. Massive balled-up wrinkles are bad. Subtle, "I'm too lazy to iron but I'm not a complete slob" is good. Couple this with some cheap (looking) "primitive" jewelry and you're good to go. Maybe a LiveStrong bracelet.

[Bob V]

I hate to admit that I know this, but distressing of clothing can be done in a number of different ways that can be expensive or cheap. In general, destroying clothing is easy, but the manufacturer has to make sure that they do not distress the clothes to the point that they are not wearable.

Jeans can be washed several times, washed in chemical baths, or physical abrasion (like pumice stones). It isn't a totally insignificant cost. If you want to create realistic distressing so that it looks like the owner of the jeans did it themselves through extended wear, the price goes up.

[roissy]

it's a typical fashion trend for the sake of trending. fashion needs to change every years (6 months? 1 week?) to act as a marker useable by the cool to filter out the uncool. is there a more pointless endeavor than fashion designer?

[Alex]

I think fashion, for young men at least, is becoming more bohemian. I only own destressed jeans because most of the popular designer brands come that way now.

I have also noticed that some guys rock a wrinkled shirt. I guess it depends on the individual. Really hip guys can pull it off, but posers will just end up looking stupid.

The funny thing is that at a bar I saw a dude wearing a wrinkled button-down shirt with his distressed jeans but also wearing an expensive Rolex (Daytona Cosmograph). Mixed messages? I guess the guy was trying to send the signal: "I may dress bohmian, but I have Investment Banker money."

[superdestroyer]

HS,

Remember, all fashion is about the expression wealth and affluence. Since cheap jeans sold at Wal-Mart are not faded, it became important that expensive jeans look like they did not come from Wal-Mart. thus, the high fashion distressed jeans.

[mondo]

What's funny are the guys who take more than a half-hour to make themselves look sloppy.

[Jim Beam]

I swear that I started that trend, (non-deliberately I might add...as I hated clothes shopping so I wore the same jeans for years on end and eventually distressed naturally) back in high school about 7 years ago.

All the popular and stuck-up girls (and even the fashionable guys aka: closeted gays) called me "scumbag" and asked "why don't you buy a new pair of pants....scumbag?"

You're telling me it is "cool" and even "acceptable" now?

The designers and the marketers
said you gotta change your style
You think you're hip an' happenin'
But you look like Gomer Pyle
Your tucked in, pressed, button down
makes people think you're stale
It's better to keep'em wonderin'
If you're a she or male

Don't get your iron out
Rock the wrinkled shirt
Rock the wrinkled shirt

You'll look like a dork
Rock the wrinkled shirt
Rock the wrinkled shirt

[Rory Hester]

Current white middle class style (or sub-style).

Slightly distressed jeans, with ironed and starched shirt untucked.

I have also seen a few people wearing polo shirts with their collars turned up... so 1980's.

Perhaps untucked shirts are a reaction to our countries expanding waistline. More likely its just a representation of increasing casual dress codes.

Either way, once you reach 30, style doesn't matter.

Quite frankly I never ever tucked in my shirt unless it was absolutely required, but I was raised in So Cal.

[Agnostic]

Wearing trashed jeans also says that you'd never be mistaken for a bum, so it's find to dress like one. Like Dennis Rodman dressing in drag. Even more hilarious are paint-splattered jeans (like little white splatters on grey or black jeans). Don't know if they're still making those... I saw these ~2003. Yeah, you really look like an artist.

[Peter]

For reasons I can't quite explain, I don't like blue jeans at all. I much prefer black jeans and own three pairs ... though having lost 15+ pounds in the last couple months all three pairs are too big for me now (yay!)

[Dan Morgan]

Distressed jeans are something my friends and I did in Junior High. So, yawn, it is a little hard to be too impressed with it now.

Showing my age here, I recall in 7th and 8th grades (1971-72) where the fad was jeans with holes in them, holes in the knees, and just generally beat up. This lasted a couple of years. Patches too were added to cover the holes in the jeans. These were jeans that were truly distressed - we didn't buy the jeans like this - you just wore the crap out of them until they wore out and started accumulating holes. Some of the holes would get really big over time. None of this phony distressed stuff.

To check my memory is working, I did a quick search and found this woman who writes about herself in 1971:

"When I returned home to start college at the University of Florida, I continued to wear my Levi's, of course. As they frayed and split at the knees and the butt, I covered each new hole with a patch of some kind ..."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/content/accent/bluejeans.html

[le biel]

I always thought the fashion for bummy-looking clothes might be a defense mechanism. Done right, you may be able to communicate to peers "I have money" and to muggers "I'm broke."

[Gil]

I hear diarrhea is hereditary . . . it runs in your jeans! XD

I saw some of the Polo fashions that came out a while ago. That shit comes pre wrinkled and pre stained (for men). I'm not joking. It had what looked like magic marker and blood spots. The wrinkles I can appreciate, who doesn't like linen? But blood spots? Getting blood out of clothing is very tough, so why you would want your threads pre-bloodied is beyond me (maybe if you are a soccer hooligan?)
Then when I was in the mall yesterday buying underwear, I noticed it was all on sale.

Ditto what Gil said!.

Besides a subject I cannot add to as I don't own any jeans and am not a victim of fashion. In fact, if I could, would go naked, but that's mainly cause I've got super sensitive skin that rashes even whilst wearing cotton!.