I Hate That I Hate Jeans

I have always hated jeans. The sight of someone wearing dark indigo fabric on their legs could make me gag. I found them uncool due to their ubiquity and casualness — How could such a common material be unique? The thought of them being lame was supported even more when I found out about the raw denim community - grown men bragging about not washing their clothes and discussing denim all in great detail - I thought it was lame as hell. It was so close to being cool until they started being nerds about it.

However, at the start of the new year, I decided to let go of my hate and embrace the unknown. Perhaps it was time to finally own a pair of proper blue denims. Although I did previously allow for grey denim to grace my legs, they were from Helmut Lang during his best year, 1998. It was time to wave the blue denim like a true American from the ‘50s.

And so the search began. I started to look into various Japanese denim brands that made jeans the way they were made decades ago. I couldn't possibly settle for some pedestrian Levi's 501. (I AM DIFFERENT I AM STRANGE I AM SOOOO UNIQUE!) Perhaps Levis Vintage Clothing line would suit me — Though I often would come across the raw denim versions, even on the secondary market. I'd rather work prison-style manual labor than be caught trying to break in a new raw pair of jeans. Why should I have to break in the clothing? I do not care about building history with clothes, I just want to look good.

The best denim was somewhere out there waiting for me, it had to be. I was like a scruffy sailor lost at sea and the desperate urge for the solid dryness of land was my yearning for that perfect pair of denim. Immersion in the culture was the only proper way of going about this, so I followed every non-lame denim page (an oxymoron) on Instagram that caught my eye. Weeks went by and my discover feed was filled to the brim with jeans. I was far beyond the point of return.

I zoomed in on photos, bringing my phone centimeters away from my face to see the details of the denim: The roping on the hems, honeycombs on the back of the legs and whiskers near the crotch, just imagining how those creases would feel against my fingertips; the distressing on the edges, seeing the fraying of the small cotton grains reminds me of the hairs of... something, but I can't remember it now. None of that matters. My mind is filled with thoughts of blue jeans and nothing else. I start to appreciate the beautifully aged denim. I can't get enough of it. I have been jean-pilled. Maybe, this is truly the blue pill. Not a care for anything in the world unless it had something to do with denim. I'm shelling out excuses just to escape my living quarters, all to bring take my jeans out on a journey. A beautiful life.

No.

Wake up and pull those tubes out, welcome to the real world.

Another day, another mindless scroll through Instagram. Wait, what’s this? An astonishing pair of what appears to be jeans with a vintage wash posted on the page Denimest, perhaps the person with the coolest collection of denim I’ve seen on this app. I ask myself, "What are these?” "Wow, they can't even post the name of the denim. I hate them." What a shame the gate has been kept. My head hangs as I stand outside of those denim gates blocking my pathway into denim heaven. I go to the comments in defeat but what do I see? A courageous and noble man that has commented, "ID?". Denimest repsonds "Warehouse 1101 2nd Hand" and just like that, I love them again. Perhaps these people who would make love to a pair of jeans or save their precious denim instead of their own child in a house fire ain't so bad after all.

I looked up the pair and was deeply disappointed by the $325 price tag. Sure, I could’ve purchased them but I knew it would be a terrible decision — this semester's tuition is still unpaid and did I really need another pair of pants? There is no need at all for them, but there is a great dilemma of really wanting them. That desire to be like Bruce Springsteen on the cover of Born in the U.S.A. was insatiable. I needed to resist, but I couldn't. Perhaps ordering straight from Nippon would be cheaper. So I spend more time searching until I found a site with a listed price of 27,000 Yen (About $200). I would’ve been pretty satisfied, if it weren’t for the fact that THEY DIDN’T HAVE MY SIZE! The only time my snatched up little waist had cursed me.

Isnt't it weird that writing about this level of consumption seems only normal because it's a journey rather than "Ooo, that is tight. I'll buy it."

Fortunately, due to my dedicated searching, I was able to purchase the jeans for a little less than half the price through an eBay auction. They fit perfectly and feel amazing! The jeans are made from a 12oz selvedge denim that was crafted on the Toyoda G3 shuttle loom. There are many imperfections on the jeans from the previous owner but they blend into the fabric seamlessly: a thumb-sized stain on the left shin area, a hole near the top right area of the paper tag, some loose stitching on the front pockets. Various areas on the fabric have been raised up perhaps through some abrasion/friction. The jeans are modeled after the Levis 501, specifically a pair from the 1960s. They even look like Levis from the back due to very similar back pocket stitching and the remains of a ripped-off red tag.

My blue jeans will last me all my life, at least I would like to think so. I wear them almost every day, only occasionally switching them out and, even then, those instances can be counted on one hand. Perhaps it's just a honeymoon phase, guess we won't know until the time comes but even then I think that they’ll remain in my closet.

Although, I will never touch raw denim. Y'all are some freaks.