It’s a bit weird at first when you see all the hip and happening youth in Europe walking around in jeans with holes and tears and frayed ends to their jeans. But then,the distressed denim look, is hot across the continent. Take a tram to the Dam in Amsterdam and these ‘offensive’ looking jeans make you stare at the places they reveal more than cover! In down town Copenhagen all the blonde and blue eyed Danes are wearing them with natty boots in the depths of winter. And in Swansea, don’t for a minute imagine the freezing cold can prevent the PYT’s from sporting them. Here the slits and frayed ends are on denim mini skirts, worn with- hold your breath, lace tights! It’s only the glittering Gucci belt or the Dolce Gabbana label that drive it home that these are designer wear and cost the wearer an arm and a leg to buy.

And to think, it’s so ironic, that back in the 1920s, denim was really just worn by factory workers in the US for its durability. Then the depression pushed the denim jeans to the forefront of American style. Today it’s not unusual to see Wall Street Bankers in New York wearing the ubiquitous denim jeans, with a jacket and tie to work, which would have cost upwards of 500 dollars for a branded pair.

The distressed look today, which seems to be taken to the limits of ‘distress’, could be an echo of denims ‘uniform of non- conformity’ statement of the ‘60s. All the big stars from Marlon Brando, James Dean and the King – Elvis Presley wore denims with a provocative and rakish style both on film and stage. This was a direct challenge to the conservative dress style of the ‘50s  and soon this rebellious style caught on with the youth. They liked the fast paced desirable image denim carried with it and soon jeans and a tee shirt became favoured wear.
In the 60s, unisex denim jeans became fashionable wear among men and women.

Later the flower people and hippie culture, brought in the embellished and personalized jeans. In India a lot of swarovski and bling seem to be in favour on denims, with the young jet set. The distressed look goes as far as faded in fashionable streaks in India, the torn and shredded look as in Europe has not enamoured our jet set – yet.  

Chatting with Kirsty Milbank in the Quadrant in Swansea, Wales, I asked her what was so special about her distressed denim Dolce Gabbana skirt. Kirsty wore the skirt with tights and a sweater in the winter chill.
“ I liked this skirt especially because of its two flap pocket with signature buttons in front. I also like the finished belt looped waist with the concealed zipper down the front. I prefer skirts to jeans and this allows me to sport the distressed look which is big on campus anyway,” she said. The skirt was low rise with a saucy slit along one side and the price tag - a cool 200 pounds!     

Homemade distressed

In Denmark Christian Boedker, a student in the campus in Aarhus, thought up an easier way of ‘making’ his own home grown distressed denim shorts. He cut off the legs of an old comfy pair of jeans. He then filled the bath tub in his student hostel flat with water, enough to submerge the shorts and poured in 1-2 cups of liquid bleach. He swilled the shorts around in the bleach and left them to soak till they became the colour he wanted. “ You have to rinse them out after that,” he said, “ or they will keep on beaching.”

To get the ‘dirty denim’ look, he took some lumps of soil from the garden and put them in a bucket of water. He left the shorts to sit in the mud water for a while and then rinsed them off. He then put the shorts into the washing machine on spin mode and spun off the water, then into the drier for a while. Then presto! He had his very own homemade dirty denim, distressed look.

 With time, denim will fade in a manner similar to that which artificially distressed denim attempts to replicate. Such fading is affected by regular use of the jeans which causes natural fading. But then, who wants to wait, to be in fashion?