I’ve seen the worn look in new clothing before, but it seems like it has gotten out of control.
I mean, just look at those two outfits in the photo above.
If I ever went to visit my mom 30 years ago looking like that, I would have never heard the end of it. She would probably have driven me to the mall herself to buy me a new outfit.
But what I really find bothersome about this “tattered look”, is how expensive it is.
I’m not sure how much the distressed clothing in the photo above costs, but it was just worn on the streets during recent Paris fashion weeks, so I’m sure the cost of each outfit exceeded my clothing budget for the past couple of years combined.
I do have some prices, however, on some similar type of clothing, thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal story by Michelle Ruiz.
These sneakers, by Golden Goose, deliberately made to look dirty and worn in, cost $425.
This ripped skirt, by R13, costs $450. To be honest, I really don’t how much a skirt should cost, but this seems a bit high. Especially given the condition it’s in.
This tattered cardigan, by Balmain Sweater, costs $2,295. That’s not a typo; it really costs over two-thousand dollars.
I’ve written several times about how foolish I think it is to spend this kind of money on clothing in general. But to spend it on this kind of clothing seems not only foolish but insulting as well.
If you want that distressed look, then just keep wearing the same pieces of clothing for several years. Then you can claim your outfit is “authentic”, and you will be telling the truth.
*top photo is from the WSJ story noted in this post.
Borden's Blather 
I think you could save money buying clothes from a thrift shop and distressing them yourself. Just chop them up and wash them with rocks a couple of times, and viola! Although you won’t be able to quote some designer label, they should certainly get you over the hump of “I am wearing these on purpose, because I am trendy”.
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I like the way you think. Hopefully thrift shops don’t start realizing that they could sell some of their stuff for 100 times what they are charging!
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I’m clueless when it comes to fashion. When I became an adult and was painting the interior of their house, I remember pulling out all of their clothes from the closet thinking, “Why in the world do they have all these clothes that they never wear?” I decided to ask my mom and she said, “Because you never know when something will come back into style.”
After some new fashion trend starts, I can rationalize why it might be popular, but this one I just don’t get at all.
Jim, did you see that I responded to our original email with some questions?
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* their = my parents. I can only edit posts from my own site. I tell myself to be more careful before sending, but I consistently make this blunder.👀
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It must be a generational thing, I don’t get it either. I had to buy a new white dress shirt a couple of months ago, and after spending the $18 it cost, I told myself I think it’s the last dress shirt I’ll need to buy for work, with my retirement likely within the next five years!
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I know where they get them from – clothes that eventually end up as gardening and decorating the house clothes go on to be torn up for cleaning rags or taken to the recycling centre and put in the rags section – obviously some enterprising person comes along and takes thme to his designer wear factory.
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I think you nailed it 🙂
A sucker is born every minute…
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Agree, hard to swallow that. Sort of like the blackening of teeth in Elizabethan (the first 🙂) times. Sugar was all the rage, but expensive, so rich people’s teeth were rotten from it. What did the folks who wanted to pretend they were just as fashionable do? Blackened their (healthy) teeth.
How do you explain fashion? 🙃
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I’d never heard f that – thank for the history lesson. I guess there’s no accounting for taste…
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There just are some things one can never understand! 🙂
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or even worth taking the time to try and understand!
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Very true!
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My wardrobe must be worth a fortune.
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mine as well; probably worth more than my 401K…
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If only I had kept my rainbow leg warmers
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I can only imagine what they would be worth today, especially if they had a few hoes in them…
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I laughed out loud when I found your typo(? )in your answer )
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ouch. now I can’t change it since the corrected version won’t be nearly as funny! 🙂
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Exactly!
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Wow I can’t believe people are spending that much money on any clothing let alone torn and used looking clothing.
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I don’t get it either; I try to keep my annual clothing budget under $50….
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Haha same here
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Crimes against fashion … and victims of fashion. Darn, where’d we go wrong?
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my mistake was listening to people telling me my clothes were too worn out and it was time to get new ones…
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Oh how I wished I’d keep my old clothes. I bet I can sell them expensive now after making more tears and holes 😂
I never fit in with my generation, I refused to wear jeans with cuts but this is taking it to a whole new level.
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I might have been a rich man if I had kept all of my old clothes. And you are right that this type of clothing brings us to a whole new level, it’s just that the level is moving in the wrong direction.
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😂 couldn’t say it better.
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I would not pay that amount for a cardigan that looks new! I don’t find this look appealing at all.
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I could by 50 cardigans for that price, and they wouldn’t be tattered!
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Gosh! I didn’t know that my closet was hiding priceless clothing . . . faded, torn, and nostalgic. I guess I will continue to wear these treasures (at least at home away from the public eye).
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it seems like a lot of us may be sitting on a gold mine with our old clothing. all we need to do is find a sucker, I mean a person, to buy it from us.
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