Ripped jeans. You just needed these two words to drive my father crazy when I was a teenager. No, actually, there was something that drove him even crazier – these two words accompanied by the actual sight of a pair of ripped jeans on a teenager.
There were two main reasons why ripped jeans were a sacrilegious affront to my father: first, most teenagers would buy new denim pants and then proceed to vandalise them, which was obviously a crime against your family in a time when there were no fast fashion retailers and a pair of pants had to last you for quite a while. Second, while the cuts and tears were not elegant and gave you a shabby look, they weren't genuine since they hadn't been caused by real hard work, and that seemed to be even more offensive to my father.
Fast forward to our days and I'm turning into my father, especially when I see people wearing cheap denim pants with so many cuts and holes in them that they are literally hanging from threads on their legs.
These new versions of the ripped jeans that used to drive my father crazy are indeed ludicrously cut to show large sections of bare skin rather than to prove the wearer was the sole survivor of an apocalypse, was out on an adventurous trip on a lost island for the past 6 months after a major shipwreck, or was engaged in a 24 hour shift in a risky and physically demanding job.
The trend has also extended to other fashion items, such as shoes, reaching a new level of madness with distressed shoes sold at extremely high prices. Maison Margiela's "Future Destroyed" sneakers look for example as if they were slashed with a razor blade and then put back together with hundreds of staples. The shoes are sold on Neiman Marcus site at $1,425.
Apparently this is supposed to be the more luxury version of other semi-destroyed models that have become popular in the last few years (pre-worn details have been all the rage for a while now...) such as Golden Goose's alleged homage to the West Coast's rich skateboard culture - the "Distressed Superstar Sneakers". The latter featured ripped laces, duct-tape reinforcements around the toe area and looked pretty dirty and run down.
Released last year at $585, the shoes were attacked on the social media with many people accusing the brand of "poverty appropriation". The brand simply explained in that case that pre-distressed footwear was their specialty.
Yet it is hard not to find this supposed "Poverty Chic" trend rather cringing. These faux-distressed luxury items are indeed not the result of creative vandalisation, but they are designed and produced for fashion poseurs wealthy enough to afford playing at being "ordinary" like Marie Antoinette dressing like a milkmaid or a shepherdess and acting like a peasant while being surrounded by the comforts of a royal lifestyle at the Hameau de la Reine; or the protagonist of Pulp's song "Common people" who thinks that poverty is cool because she knows she isn't actually poor and can stop acting the part and resume her wealthy life whenever she wants.
You may ask, what do you care about if a wealthy person stupidly splashes their money on a pair of allegedly conceptual and deconstructed, but actually destroyed shoes? In a way you're right, I shouldn't be caring, but then, a while back, I heard a young girl in the street complaining to one of her friends she couldn't possibly go to school in her condition. When she pointed at her shoes and raised one foot to show it to a friend, I understood: her sneakers were completely run down and there was a large hole in the rubber sole. Clearly, those weren't Margiela's and they weren't a style choice, they were indeed the real thing. I guess it would be rather difficult to explain someone in such a position that there are actually people out there who intentionally buy destroyed shoes as fashionable status symbols.
In a nutshell, when you consider real life, you find these artificially distressed luxury designs pretty offensive and rather inappropriate. On an additional note, yes, I may be turning into my father. But then again, you know what they say about your parents being always right.
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