Dirt cheap? Not quite.

Everyone pants for ruined jeans

by Nina Willdorf

Used to be, people spent years finessing a pair of jeans from their rough and rigid new state to soft, weathered perfection. But these days a worn-in pair of jeans requires money rather than effort.

In the past year, a whole new array of pre-beat-up, pre-muddied, and pre-softened jeans have exploded in popularity. Diesel started the trend in early 1999 with its slogan "the luxury of dirt," and now sells six washes and more than nine cuts of distressed jeans. The company takes destruction seriously: each pair of jeans is vandalized by hand in a factory in Italy. To achieve the right look, Diesel colors the inside of its denim orange, which bleeds through as you wash the pants -- which employees recommend you do rarely, if ever.

But all that sandblasting, dyeing, and pumice-rubbing comes at a price: Diesel's distressed jeans, for instance, sell for $120 to $148. Although adults have been known to balk at the concept and the cost, store manager Sheila Traphagen says young people just can't get enough of them. "All we have to do is hold them up and people get excited by them," she says.

Pre-wrecked jeans may, in fact, be more economical than they seem. According to Pete Hagen, a vice-president at Sights Denim Systems, which "antiques" 500,000 articles of clothing a month for manufacturers such as Levi's and Calvin Klein, buying pre-tattered threads gives you the look you crave without decreasing the clothing's life span through actual use. "If you were to wear a pair of jeans for a year straight, and get the same look, they're not going to last very long," Hagen says.

The result for Levi's is the "Engineered Jeans" line, which includes a faded vintage-looking jacket in light blue that nicely captures the recently-run-over look (about $76).

At Urban Outfitters, both men and women can suit up in dirty Bulldogs (men's are $54 to $64; women's are $42), which sport faded butts and thighs, and the occasional lighter hue mid-shin. (How realistic is that, we wonder?)

Mudo has a whole ensemble of dirty denim for both sexes: pants ($64), jackets ($79), and overalls ($79). In fact, the store has recently ditched clean overalls in favor of the tarnished ones. "Dirty overalls are doing much better than clean," says manager Sarah Avci. "It matches the whole overall look."

And to drive the trend home, the Gap's also in on it, with its "tinted" 1969 denim line that's rinsed in yellow and brown for an authentic crusty look ($58 for men and $54 for women).

The question remains, are you supposed to clean these dirty jeans? Avci says you can, but that's the wrong idea: "They're made to look like you rolled in the mud or something."

Stores mentioned in this article:

* Diesel, 116 Newbury Street (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 437-7344; 30 JFK Street (Harvard Square), Cambridge, (617) 354-5258.
* Urban Outfitters, 361 Newbury Street (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 236-0088; 11 JFK Street (Harvard Square), Cambridge, (617) 864-0070.
* Levi's, the Original Levi's Store, 800 Boylston Street in the Prudential Center (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 375-9010.
* Mudo, 205 Newbury Street (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 266-7838; 9 JFK Street (Harvard Square), Cambridge, (617) 876-8846.
* The Gap, various locations around Greater Boston; (800) GAP-STYLE or www.gap.com.