Levi Strauss must be rolling in his grave right about now.
Even 132 years after their 1873 debut, blue jeans continue to wear the pants in the fashion industry. They have become the quintessential component to completing the look. From ASU's proverbial waist down, guys and girls all over campus don this riveted and oh-so-riveting apparel every day.
But I doubt Levi Strauss & Company originally intended for jeans to look the way they currently look. In fact, the fashion forgers of 2005 have literally ripped Strauss' original creation to shreds.
Nowadays, it is not only commonplace to wear jeans with split seams and tears throughout the fabric, but also to head to trendy clothing stores like Abercrombie & Fitch or American Eagle Outfitters to buy them that way. Although the cost will depend on where you end up dropping your dollars, the average price for a pair of ripped jeans stands around $130, whereas a non-ripped, non-stained and non-dog-mangled pair usually will come to about $50. I guess less really is more.
But when you think about it, that mentality is evident throughout society. At the bar, a shot consists of a little bit of alcohol and a lot more money. At the eyeglass store, frames without rims cost more than frames with rims. At the casino, the fewer trips you make to the ATM, the more money you keep in your checking account. Fashion is no different.
The less clothing you wear, the more provocative you become to the world around you. At least, that is the message that advertisers and Hollywood have been sending. But the big question I have is, when did kneecaps become the sexy "in-skin"?
A majority of the rips in jeans seem to appear across the knee, exposing people's patellae to the world. Now, I am not going to put myself above the clothing craze. I too, am the owner of a pair of ripped jeans. But I did not buy them that way. It took many months of tug-of-war playtime on the family-room floor with my golden retriever for those rips to form. I earned my ripped jeans.
I sometimes joke about the fact that my jeans are near the end of their lives and the rip in the left knee is getting bigger and bigger. When people ask how I got the rip, I simply tell them that I have an Incredible Hulk complex. All my walks from Lot 59 have built up my knee muscles enough that when I flex them, I always rip my jeans.
I remember a time when rips told stories like scars. Your jeans would become conversational pieces at parties, and everyone would want to hear about your battle to the death with a menacing grizzly bear in the Appalachian Mountains. Those stories don't exist anymore because jeans have already been destroyed by the time you buy them.
What's even worse is some of the rips in these new jeans are in all the wrong places. Occasionally I people-watch over by the John W. Schwada Classroom Office Building with two of my friends, biology senior Julie Madrid and accounting and finance freshman Amy Madrid, and we will see people with ridiculous tears up to the back of their thighs -- sometimes even near the pockets. Come on, people, those rips don't even come close to looking authentic. Some would require the absence of gravity!
But however Strauss originally intended his blue jeans to be in the future, his invention has become a staple of today's fashion. Ripped or not, jeans are everywhere. Wearing a pair is as American as eating a slice of apple pie while driving your Chevy to a baseball game. They can be worn with just about any shirt, and everything seems to match just fine.
As for rips and tears, keep them real. Having rips in your jeans that you can call your own is so much more rewarding -- take it from me.
It's not too late to rip it. Rip it good.
Jimmy Shoffman is 175 lbs of pure, unadulterated excitement. Reach him at james.shoffman@asu.edu.
