Distressed, frayed, unraveled, scarred, battered, ripped, thrashed and slashed were once descriptions that made clothing unwearable. Now it not only makes it more desirable, but often more expensive.
The prevailing trend in the most universally adored uniform of casual America is abused denim.
In January, Christophe Decarnin of Balmain got a considerable amount of tongues wagging over a pair of jeans that had been ripped, bleached and possibly subjected to a lawn mower. The retail price was more than $2,000, but despite the price tag, or perhaps because of it, the jeans sold very quickly.
We grimace at the thought of such waste and excess, but who's to say it's wrong?
Distressed denim became popular in the mid-1980s when designers grew tired of seeing stylish people seeking old — I mean "vintage" — jeans to bum around in.
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The designers found a way to bring those customers back to department stores by making distressing intentional and artistic, not just some haphazard convention of wear and tear or a goth girl's scissors.
The acid-washed, bleached and torn results looked whimsically tortured. Parents objected, teenagers rebelled and the design world did a happy dance.
What better seal of approval than disapproval?
So now as retailers continue attempts to shake us out of our shopping malaise, they are seeking to create must-haves that people won't ignore. There have to be extremes because they bring more people into the middle, where it's comfortable.
So I'm not surprised that the new jeans are not just distressed but "destroyed."
John Eshaya, designer of Jet jeans, said the appeal lies in the fact that destroyed denim doesn't mean sloppy.
Yet, true to their name, some pairs do look as if someone dug a deep hole in the ground and filled it with denim, dirt and an explosive device.
This summer and into fall, the tattered, baggy and torn boyfriend jean will continue to make fashionable appearances, but there's a sentence from a popular blog that sums up the trend quite nicely with a coin-toss analogy: "When you flip it, instead of 'heads or tails,' your options are 'hot or homeless.' "
And therein lies the conundrum.
"I like very distressed denim with a nice fitted top and simple heels," said Natalie Woods of Daisy Clover in Webster Groves, Mo., known for her huge collection of jeans. "But with a monster truck T-shirt and a baseball cap . . . not so cute."
Woods said that people shouldn't assume that tortured denim is an all-or-nothing proposition. You can have your exploded jeans and your clean-cut, crisp and pressed dark blue denim trouser, too. There's a time and place for everything.
And this applies to guys, too. If you did not hear the ruckus over President Obama's "mom jeans" appearance at the All-Star game, well, you might want to Google that; the CNN video is pretty funny. Anyway, it just goes to show that no one is above reproach.
And there's always a fall-back plan. Francine Rabinovich, founder of the Brooklyn-based Denim Therapy company, will repair holes in jeans, making the correction nearly undetectable. If you stick your foot through the wrong hole of your $300 jeans and want them fixed, she can do that, or if you want your college pair resuscitated, Denim Therapy has got you covered — for $7 an inch plus shipping. Check them out at denimtherapy.com
"Everyone has a different relationship with their jeans," Rabinovich said. "Most of us have a collection of jeans that we use to garden or for going out or for play or for work. Some graduate to different purposes as they age."
A new rip for some might make their denim suitable for either cocktails or housework. Let's not judge.
