The Popcorn Stand: I’m heavily distressed over heavily distressed jeans

I’ll never understand fashion. I’m not much into fashion. If I leave the house with my hair combed and my shirt or jacket on not inside out, I consider it a victory. (Trust me, it’s happened to me more than once when somebody has had to tell my I had my jacket or shirt on inside out).

But I think wearing a shirt inside out is even better than this. The grunge look from the early 1990s is apparently back and has been updated. And I mean grunge look, literally. (And yes, I mean literally, I’m not just using that word figuratively. But I digress).

When I was a Millennial, I never understood why those my age would spend way too much money for jeans with holes in them. I watched a college roommate once plunk down $70 for a sweater at Nordstrom in the 1980s and told him he was paying for the piano player in the middle of the store.

But Nordstrom is now apparently charging $425 for dirty jeans. Yes, you can spend hundreds of dollars for jeans that make you look like you just played in the mud. They’re also called muddy jeans or actually I believe the correct term is “heavily distressed” jeans. Give me a break.

I’ve got three or four pairs of jeans, so when my dad has his next yard sale, I’m going to roll around in the mud and charge say $25 a pair for my “heavily distressed” jeans. I figure it will be an easy way to make a $100 or so and hey, compared to what Nordstrom is charging, it’s a bargain.

And apparently you can get a “mud denim jacket” to go along with your muddy, dirty, heavily distressed, whatever you call them jeans for the total “heavily distressed” look. I’m heavily distressed just writing about it.

The jeans can be washed and the dirt doesn’t come off, so really what’s the difference and why do they need to be washed anyway? It’s not like anybody’s going to notice washed dirty jeans.

As Yogi Berra said, “Only in America.”

— Charles Whisnand