Dirty and Distressed?
March 31, 2010 From my just-concluded, seat-of-the-pants apparel survey of friends and colleagues, this is my conclusion: It is remarkably common, at least in my demographic sample (affluent adults in the northern U.S.), for one to treasure a favorite old pair of jeans as dearly as an old friend.
One of my survey subjects fondly recalled the tattered jeans she wore on a fateful first date twenty-some years ago. “I really looked cute in those jeans,” she bragged. I believe her. She and her date went cross-country skiing and to dinner, and she wore yellow long-johns underneath those “distressed” jeans, splashes of yellow peaking through the holes of the denim. She still has those jeans. She kept that guy around, too – me, her husband.
Denim jeans became a sensation in the West when the young, rebellious generation of the 1960s – the hippies – adopted jeans as their anti-fashion, fashion statement. Worn-out, dirty jeans replete with holes symbolized the wearer’s rejection of society’s mores. Wearing tattered jeans was akin to casting an emphatic “no” vote on consumerism and the military adventurism that was said to support it.
So, what delicious irony it is that a pair of hole-ridden, faded jeans, even appearing dirty, is today the epitome of high fashion…and has a very fashionable price tag.
Simple logic suggests that a garment aptly described as “faded, dirty and distressed” might well be ready for the rag pile. And yet, many of today’s elite fashion labels proudly describe their new chic lines of designer jeans with these very adjectives. The “True Religion” brand offers such a pair for $570 USD. A pair of “faded, dirty wash” denim shorts by “Vince”: $225 USD. Translation: At least $300 per pound of cotton.
Transforming a brand new, bright blue, stiff (and nerdy) pair of jeans into a soft, faded, hole-ridden (and cool) fashion statement used to require time and patience, and sometimes a bit of home-spun technique. From decades ago, I can still see the beet-red face of my friend’s mom, perplexed and apoplectic, while she yelled at him for dragging through the streets his new pair of jeans, which he’d filled with rocks and tied to the back of her car. She just didn’t appreciate his ingenuity in speeding up the fashion process.
Today, that process is lightening fast. Ultra-modern lasers and specially developed “washes” render brand new designer jeans faded, full of holes, and even dirty. No wait or work for the wearer! Thanks to an ironic twist of fashion and technology, instant gratification for distressed and dirty jeans is here, and the fashionistas’ desire for denim knows no bounds.
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