So you can imagine my surprise when, at the suggestion of a friend, I tried on a pair of Diesel jeans. They looked great, fit well, and were soft as butter. I didn’t even mind that they had that pretentious and unearned “distressed” look. Then, the real distress set in: a $150 pricetag! And those were the cheap Diesels. I thought I was buying jeans in Russia!
At this point, you might be thinking -- as I did -- “That’s nuts! Who blows a hundred bucks on jeans!” But I know others of you are thinking, “Where’ve you been, Grandpa?” Apparently, lots of people have been paying $100, $200, and higher for brands like Diesel, Lucky, Seven, Evisu, and Paper Denim for some time now. Don’t take my word for it; just glance around. Expensive jeans are everywhere, and they do indeed look better. I’ve noticed this for a while, but I’ve always just chalked it up to fantastic genes, not fantastic jeans. They’re also some of the hottest items on eBay.
It’s a bit of a throwback to the early 80’s, when Gloria Vanderbilt, Jordache, Sassoon, and Calvin Klein ruled the denim world. But this goes far beyond someone simply putting his John Hancock on your behind. Modern superbrand jeans are low-low-low rise, and feature 70’s stitching, flair bottoms, and artificial rips, scuffs, and patches. Another giveaway: if you can see someone’s underwear underneath, chances are good that her jeans cost a lot of money. The underwear probably wasn’t cheap either.
I used to feel cool in my no-stitch, zip-up, high-high-high-high-rise, perfectly intact blue jeans. Especially the “acid-washed” ones. Now I feel like a fashion flop. I try pushing them down my waist, but they just won’t stay there. The denim valley between the top of my thighs and the waistband seems to go on for miles. These pants are goners.
On a note of defiance, I’m keeping my wrinkle- and stain-resistant nanotechnology-enhanced khakis no matter how uncool they are. In exchange for a little softness, you get pants that resist water, dirt, grease, wrinkles, and, I believe, bullets. Firemen should wear these things. NASA should study them. They will outlive all of us.
Cathy Abrams, who runs Cathy & Co., a New Jersey clothing and accessories store, carries fancy jean brands including Cambio, Red Engine, Vitaminia, and Pure Color. Her most expensive jeans go for a cool $200. Pure Color, Cathy tells me, is also known as the “Oprah Jeans,” since Oprah Winfrey apparently gave them her strong personal recommendation. Given Oprah’s public preferences for particular authors, this makes Pure Color the William Faulkner of the blue jeans world, a hotly-contested title if there ever was one. Let’s hope the people at Pure Color didn’t embellish any details about the brand’s life story because we all know she gets prickly about that kind of thing.
Are these jeans really better than $40 jeans? Cathy contends they generally fit better and have higher quality denim. Also, people can wear classy jeans almost anyplace nowadays, no matter how posh. Some ultra-exclusive nightclubs may even have a “three-rip minimum.” People rationalize the investment by sticking to one pair of jeans for years and wearing them often, Cathy told me. It’s certainly true we all have one pair of jeans in our closet that we’ve spent more intimate time with than our own families.
Though they say you can’t teach an old dog to wear new pants, or something like that, this fashion geezer is going to try. If you see me in the street wearing my cool jeans, give me a wink. Or, take pity on me because now I can’t afford lunch for a month.
Either way, don’t look down, because my shoes are Buster Brown. Hey, one pricey makeover at a time.
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