in the past month or two, my jeans collection took a major hit: three pairs of my most favorite jeans passed away. my miss sixty skinny jeans from circa 2004 (VERY early skinny jeans, skinnies were really hard to find back then, now they are ubiquitous!) got a huge bleach stain on them. my greyish-black UO skinny jeans that i wore almost every single day with everything for a couple years split apart near the waistband, and a favorite pair of j crew jeans i bought in '06 split on the ass. the grey ones are probably mendable, but the miss sixty's and the j crew pair are probably goners. i've been in major denial...i haven't been able to bear looking at them since to assess if any of them are salvageable. the thought that any of them might be goners makes my stomach churn.
so recently i found myself desperately looking around for a couple pairs of new jeans, jeans that might take the place of those old, dearly loved jeans. not necessarily exact replacements, but pairs that might eventually become go-to, staple jeans in my wardrobe in the way that their predecessors had in the past.
i'm finding myself repelled by the majority of jeans out in (mass market) stores of late: so many are ruined by cut-rate fabric (so thin and worthless!), or hacky, fakey distressing (i.e.: ugly "faux" creases and wear on the crotch/thigh area). i'm sorry; i just can't do it. if i am gonna do any distressing it either better be authentic or at least look like it. otherwise, i'm all about the rigid/dark denim; it's not trying to "be" anything but what it initially was/is, for the most part. boyfriend styles do nothing for me. they are comfortable but with my figure, i don't need the ease they offer. i like skinny styles and they flatter my shape, but i am sort of tiring of them (though i'll likely keep wearing them anyway because of the former).
in the midst of looking around, i got a flash vision of what might be my perfect jean right now: rigid (no stretch), dark denim, a little relaxed through the thigh and definitely through the calf.
and then i started musing about a favorite pair of thrifted jeans in my collection that are awesome but just a hair too small (especially after having had a baby; my figure is close to what it was pre-poppy but *not exactly*, if you know what i mean, mommas!): a pair of 70s bellbottom navy-style bleach spot jeans. they are nicely high-wasted, the perfect length, and they fit like a million bucks (at one time anyway!). i love them but it has to be a good body day for me to squeeze back into them comfortably. i am pretty sure they were originally navy issue. if not, they were awfully close.
a quick spin around the webs looking at the major jeans brands didn't turn up any reasonable facsimile. so on a whim, i googled around for army-navy surplus sites, to see if anything turned up...
and voila, the jeans you see above.
$22 and some change. almost non-existent shipping. (less than a dollar??)
they came today. (i ordered them the end of last week.)
they fit like they were made for me.
no fakey distressing. cheap as chips.
and exactly what i had in mind. i love how they have a very classic, but also very 70s look. (my favorite decade, in case you didn't know.) they even look a little 40s. they so aren't "in" right now, shape-wise or looks-wise (when 90s grunge crap is reigning), but i don't give a whit.
they just need some hemming, and they are basically good to go.
i'm excited about them...i think they will be a nice change of pace in my jeans wardrobe, and i love how they are exactly what i was looking for and sort of unassuming and under the radar. yay!
i'll ask you, because i so like to ask you!:
have any of your jeans ever bit the dust in an untimely, sad manner? what did you do? did you find a suitable replacement?
what's your idea of the perfect pair of jeans? right now, in the past or for all time?