Miscellany: Distressed clothing is the dumbest thing in the world (rant)

Right now I'm wearing a pair of "distressed" shorts my Mom got me as a gift (well, she bought them because they were extremely cheap, too). "Distressed" clothing refers to clothing that has been deliberately made to look old or worn, and in this case, the shorts don't have any hem at the bottom of the pant leg.

Anybody who's ever sewed a pair of shorts can probably predict what's happening now. The damn pant legs are unraveling, with ever-longer threads of fabric coming off the bottom of the hem-less shorts. This is unsurprising, since a hem is designed to prevent garments from unraveling in the first place. Ulgh.

I could go on - even sillier examples of this fashion exist. Sometimes manufacturers will rip holes into material and shoddily stitch them up, or purposely bleach or dye a material a different color from the rest of the clothing. And people actually pay extra for this.

Now, I can understand how it started. A pair of really worn-in jeans, for example, has a certain cool factor for the original owner of the jeans. Or even a pair purchased at a thrift shop - you never know where those clothes actually come from or what they've been through, so there's some personality there, I guess. But to buy a pair of brand spanking-new "distressed" jeans from a shelf full of dozens of similarly "distressed" jeans makes absolutely no sense at all, and certainly isn't doing much in the service of rugged individuality.