.jpg)
When asked how to distress jeans, my first answer is always this: Wear them. If you want that look like they’ve been loved to pieces, love them to pieces. Eventually, they’ll weather and rip and break apart in all the right places. The durability of is undeniable, yes. But nothing, we know, lasts forever. If breaking-in jeans at a grass-growing pace isn’t your idea of a good time, however, a) I don’t blame you, and b) You don’t have to. The art of distressing denim is one that many jean companies have mastered—and even made more environmentally acceptable—since interest spiked in the mid-’70s amidst the rise of . It’s been said that a 1970 Ian Tyas photograph of
British artist and activist with a scarf tied at her waist is responsible for inspiring designers to make messed up jeans en masse. Around this time, industry innovators Adriano Goldschmied, a.k.a , and François Girbaud began experimenting with ways to sublimate denim in the wash. Stories of Girbaud throwing skateboard wheels and beach sand into the dryers still haunt the halls of L.A.’s premium denim laundries. Turns out, a lot of the early, most effective methods for distressing denim in production, like sandblasting and pumice stone-tumbling, aren’t so great for people or the planet. Hand sanding and lasers, which burn whiskers and holes into jeans without needing water, do much less damage and can yield comparable results. Who among us has computerized lasers sitting around at home, though? Or the time to take raw, shrink-to-fits swimming in the ocean, as my dad used to do in the ’60s, so that all that salty goodness can eat away at the indigo? If you have the patience to break in unwashed–often called “raw” or “dry” – blue jeans from scratch, it be worth it. (Nothing really compares to the look of after they’ve been worn for a year or more with very little washing.) Barring that, read this… The DIY on distressed denim The jeans that hold-up best to weathering and distressing are made of 100% cotton. Elastane, the thread that gives stretch jeans their stretchiness, will curl and then collapse when compromised too much. Trust me, it’s not a good look. Starting with what’s called a “rinsed” jean, which is just steps away from raw having been pre-washed only with water and little else, is perfectly acceptable in my book. Levi’s distressed jeans as “jeans that have been manipulated to give them a more vintage look.” Some put rips and holes in this category, others do not. (I do, for what it’s worth.) No matter your camp, it is generally recommended to make large, single cuts or slits when distressing denim yourself. There’s a not-so-fine line between distressing and damaging, and that’s it. How to distress your jeans In professional laundries, dry processes like sanding and grinding happen before washing, and the same goes for doing it at home. My general advice when self-distressing is to go slow. Start by making small abrasions in the areas where holes or fraying would naturally occur: At the knees, yes, but also the around hems, pocket edges, and button holes. Sandpaper is probably the most recommended tool for this. Cheese graters get mentioned online sometimes; a microplane would work better, I think. My tool of choice is the , which has a rougher attachment for adults that’s effective and easy to control. (A baby shower gift I never knew I needed, I now give one to all my new-
Friends for its intended use, too.) Use it to break or “grind” the yarn, then wash your jeans to encourage those areas to fray; you might not see much until you’ve cycled them, . Air dry, . Repeat until you get the desired effect. The cool (if short-lived) look of a tear being held together by white yarns requires a bit more intention. A recommends marking where you want the tear to be by using tailors’ chalk to draw horizontal lines (no more than eight) in varying lengths, then scraping (not cutting) along those lines with a kitchen knife or boxcutter. Now is when I recommend washing to agitate the tear and help separate the denim’s white threads from the blue ones. If more distress is still desired after a wash, use tweezers and scissors to pull away and cut the blue yarns . The more obscure and less mainstream “spur bites” are one of my favorite real-life-inspired markings to see on jeans. Here, the backs of a jean’s hemlines at the heels have a frayed, jagged finish, simulating the damage that spurs might do. To get this look, use any of the techniques described above, making sure to mark each hem–backs only!–a little differently. Spur bites are never perfectly symmetrical. Of course, if all of this sounds too aggressive or intimidating, simply thin the knees and hems using sandpaper or the baby file, and wait. Do some squats. Parent a toddler. Take a trail ride and wade in a river. If none of this works, live a little harder. Get on your hands and knees in the garden. Holes or not, you probably won’t regret it. Below, a selection of jeans to shop—from denim primed for distressing to styles featuring varying degrees of wear and tear.