The other day while out, I happened to end up walking behind a young woman in a pair of jeans that were more holes than pants. In my younger years the assumption would have been that this was a homeless person, down on her luck whose only attire involved these ripped and torn items of clothing. But this was not the case. This young woman was dressed in the height of fashion ---- long gleaming hair falling down her back over a sequined top, and on her feet expensive boots that announced their provenance on the heel in case an observer did not realize their value.
I knew from shopping with younger members of my family that these torn jeans were actually more expensive than ones that were unblemished. And one could find them in a confusing welter of selections that included boot cut, slim cut, relaxed fit, flared, low rise, high rise and who knows what else. They could also be dark blue, light blue, stone washed or black to name a few.
In my younger blue-jeans-wearing days, they came in one color and one style. They were dark blue and straight-legged. To look any other way had to be earned rather than bought. First one had to stop growing so that one could wash the garment repeatedly until it reached that delightfully soft faded blue. Since girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, the only time one could don jeans and consequently get them into the wash was on weekends. Thus, a gently faded and soft pair of denims took some determination to achieve.
As for the torn garments these were also earned. One got those tears by falling off of a moving bike, or climbing a tree with a hidden snag, or taking a spill on a pair of skates. And those rips were promptly closed up by the adults in one’s life with patches which ironed on over the holes produced by vigorous play. No self-respecting mother would allow her child out of the house in pants whose rips were not suitably taken care of.
Also, no self-respecting mother would appear in a pair of blue jeans herself. They were for the young. The idea that one would see a pair of jeans paired with high heels on a woman or with a sports coat on a man would have been heresy.
If only I had known, as I tumbled off the monkey bars and skinned my knees through the rip in my jeans or treasured my old worn blue jeans that I was making a futuristic fashion statement. I would have been as incredulous as my parents would be today at the young girl in her torn jeans.