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As a teen I thought they were cool but now as a 32 year old I don't like them and think they're trashy. Some light distressing is ok to me; I tend to prefer darker/grayer hues in my denim anyway.
...and I am old enough to remember them the first time around, 40 years ago. Actually they made more sense then, what with hippie culture and anti-establishment values.
I am not a fashionable person, I require only that my clothes be clean, no holes, fit me, and something I like.
Can anyone explain why you buy & wear jeans with holes in them?
PS - actually I am so old I have to stop myself from calling them dungarees.
Don't expect fashion to be rational. Back when they were invented, as you point out, they kind of made sense. Over the years, they've become "cool" in their own right. The Grunge look in the 90's gave them a boost, and now they have their own momentum.
Don't expect fashion to be rational. Back when they were invented, as you point out, they kind of made sense. Over the years, they've become "cool" in their own right. The Grunge look in the 90's gave them a boost, and now they have their own momentum.
Exactly. Fashion can mean functional too but very often does not. That's why it's considered fashion. Indeed, a fair percentage of fashion throughout the ages and across different cultures was made to be deliberately less functional. Sometimes the point is either proof that you don't "have to" work hard in comfortable clothes (even if you do) that will stay in place and not get in your way, sometimes it is defiance of just-leaving trends, sometimes it makes a statement for or against something, sometimes it is just outright creativity.
I would guess the motivation behind distressed jeans was a thumbing at convention and looking proper/appropriate, at least initially. And why not? Its great that we can choose to express ourselves, at least in certain circumstances - few people are probably working at banks in ripped jeans, for example.
I used to hate them too but I caved and bought a pair. My pair only has a rip in the knee. I will not wear or buy a pair that looks shredded, though. I'm 36 but look younger so I feel like I can get away with it. If I was 50+ no way would I wear ripped jeans. Then again, I don't know about anywhere else but I see a lot of 60-70-year-old women around here with pink, blue etc. hair and it blows my fricking mind. Anything goes now, I guess.
I better throw away all of my ripped denim. Crap all that money on Seven, Citizens, and AG.
In my opinion, there's nothing that looks more contrived than a pair of brand-new distressed jeans. Give me a pair of well-broken-in jeans that say, "hey, we're been through a lot together and wasn't it a great ride?" and we're in business....
It seems to me that 'what goes around, comes around' (and I am eagerly awaiting the return of the bell bottom pant and sailor shirt combo I drooled over as a teenager - oh and the shag mini skirt .. what ever happened to those, I wonder?).
At any rate, we used to buy new jeans (if our family could afford them) and wore them till our mothers could not stand looking at them any more and patched them (they were what we now call 'distressed') and at that point, we cut them off into shorts (which got shorter and shorter each year till finally they ended up in the rag bag or our mother's sewing basket as pieces to patch other pairs of pants.) They also lasted longer too because no one ever wore that sort of thing to school either. In short, we made do with what we had and we learned DIY skills to keep them going as long as possible. That was the 'fashion' back then - or at least we told ourselves it was because who wanted to be 'out of fashion' as a teenager - ever in history. It seems to be a rite of passage - though I think now the number of years that it spans has 'expanded' beyond teen-hood.
Nowadays, no one patches socks or jeans or shirts as we did when I was young. They don't know how - but they think that same look is chic. So they are thrilled that someone has manufactured in the flaws that we got for free back in my youth. I am not sure it ever occurs to most of them now that we didn't wear our jeans back then looking like that because we 'wanted' to but because we 'had to'.
Coming from that era though, I will always buy my jeans new - whether I let them get to the 'distressed' stage though is up in the air. I might be tempted to fix them so they would look less distressed however if they verged on that dilapidated state - all because of what I grew up with - the skills to fix things, the (to me) smarts not to pay 3 times more for old rather than a much lower price for new, and perhaps a tinge of the 'stigma' one may have felt (which made us say it was 'fashionable' rather than admit we just couldn't afford new) way back then.
I don't get the whole distressed look either. Why would someone buy jeans that have holes in them? I prefer a more cultured and classic look. Think Audrey Hepburn, NOT Kim K.
I remember reading several years ago about a woman who would buy cheap new jeans and then take them out into her back yard and shoot them with buckshot. Then she'd sew a custom tag into them sell them in her shop for $500 a pair.
Why don't I think of stuff like that? I could be a millionaire....
I remember reading several years ago about a woman who would buy cheap new jeans and then take them out into her back yard and shoot them with buckshot. Then she'd sew a custom tag into them sell them in her shop for $500 a pair.
Why don't I think of stuff like that? I could be a millionaire....
That's hilarious but it sounds a little urban legend-y.
I guess there's probably been one of everything in the fashion world, though.
I remember reading several years ago about a woman who would buy cheap new jeans and then take them out into her back yard and shoot them with buckshot. Then she'd sew a custom tag into them sell them in her shop for $500 a pair.
Why don't I think of stuff like that? I could be a millionaire....
I knew a girl in my high school art class that did that
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Back when they were invented, as you point out, they kind of made sense. Over the years, they've become "cool" in their own right. The Grunge look in the 90's gave them a boost, and now they have their own momentum.
