Extreme Cut-Out Jeans and Other Strange Denim Trends Explained

Originally published 2018-06-13.

The "extreme cut-out jeans" that went viral in May 2018 were a pair of light-blue jeans by the Los Angeles label Carmar with almost all of the leg fabric removed. What remained was the waistband, the pocket bags, the seams running down each leg and a strip at each knee and ankle. They sold for $168 (often misreported as $166), sold out within days and left customers joining a waitlist, while the rest of the internet debated whether they counted as trousers at all.

They were not a one-off. Around the same time, designers were selling jeans with zips down the back, detachable legs and even fake mud. Here is a look at those experiments, where ripped denim came from, and what to think about before buying, or making, distressed jeans yourself.

From workwear to fashion experiment

Jeans began as tough work clothing. Tailor Jacob Davis and merchant Levi Strauss received a US patent for riveted denim trousers on 20 May 1873, and for decades the garment was associated with miners, farmers and cowboys. The fabric itself is older still: jean cloth is linked to Genoa in Italy, and the twill later called denim to weavers in Nîmes, France.

Because jeans are so universal, they make an ideal canvas for designers who want to provoke. Changing a familiar object is an easy way to get attention, and denim's ability to fray, fade and take on wear makes it especially easy to play with.

Zips, detachable legs and fake mud

A few of the stranger designs that circulated in 2017 and 2018:

The back-zip jeans. This reworked pair of vintage Levi's has a zip running the full length of the back seam, so the seat can be opened completely. The design was widely shared online and often linked to the Paris label Vetements, which built its early reputation partly on cut-up and re-sewn Levi's. It was mostly a provocation rather than something meant for everyday wear.

Detachable legs. Paris-based Y/Project and other labels showed black jeans whose lower legs fasten on with snaps, so they can be worn full length or as very short shorts. The idea plays with two garments in one; the result divided opinion over whether it was clever or simply awkward.

Mud-stained denim. In 2017 the department store Nordstrom drew widespread mockery for selling PRPS jeans coated in a fake mud finish, reportedly priced at around $425. Critics said the jeans turned real manual labour into a costume; the brand framed them as rugged Americana.

How ripped jeans became normal

Deliberately worn-looking denim has a long history. Factories experimented with distressing as early as the 1930s, and in the mid-1960s a New York boutique sold jeans that had been washed to look old. Stone-washing arrived in the early 1980s, followed by acid-washing.

Torn jeans as a statement came from music. Iggy Pop wore them on stage in the early 1970s and the Ramones made ripped denim part of the punk uniform. By the 1980s manufacturers were selling jeans pre-torn and even pre-fitted with safety pins, which stripped the look of its rebellious meaning, and the style returned in the 1990s with grunge. Today a pair with a few knee rips is a standard high-street item.

If you want to distress your own jeans, the video above shows common techniques. A few tips: put a block of wood or a magazine inside the leg so you only cut one layer, try on the jeans and mark rips with chalk before cutting, sand or scrape the edges to fray them, and wash once afterwards to soften the look. Knee rips grow with wear, so start smaller than you think.

This is how most people picture ripped jeans: skinny jeans with tears at the knees and thighs and frayed hems, with plenty of fabric still intact.

The $168 extreme cut-out jeans

Carmar's design, sold in a relaxed fit, takes the ripped look to its limit. Seen from the front and side, there is barely any denim left: the white pocket linings hang loose, the inner and outer seams frame bare legs and only narrow bands hold the structure together at the knees and cuffs. Most product photos styled them over a black bodysuit or shorts.

Social media posts from that spring showed the jeans worn at fairgrounds and festivals, where they suited the playful, attention-seeking looks popular around events such as Coachella. Whether festival season drove the sales is an educated guess rather than a reported fact.

Worn over bike shorts, as here, the jeans become something closer to a pair of denim chaps, a layering trick that made them more wearable than the bare-leg product shots suggested.

A full-length catalogue shot shows the whole construction. Local US TV stations reported in early May 2018 that Carmar's site listed the jeans as sold out and was taking email sign-ups for a waitlist; some international outlets quoted higher local prices after conversion and shipping.

Why people pay for less fabric

It seems absurd to pay more for jeans with most of the material removed, but price in fashion rarely tracks the amount of cloth. Buyers pay for design, labour, brand image and, above all, novelty. Cut-out pieces require careful finishing so they do not unravel, and limited runs of a viral item can sell out simply because few were made.

There is also the attention economy. A garment that people argue about online is free advertising for a label, which is one reason designers keep producing deliberately outrageous pieces. Many of them are better understood as statements or conversation starters than as serious proposals for everyone's wardrobe.

Common myths and a few practical tips

Myth: distressed jeans are just damaged and cost nothing to make. Factory distressing is extra work, from hand sanding to laser treatment. Older techniques such as sandblasting have caused silicosis among textile workers, which is why several major brands have banned it.

Myth: ripped jeans are bad for the planet only if you throw them away. All jeans have a heavy footprint; one widely cited life-cycle estimate puts a pair at about 3,400 litres of water from cotton field to home washing.

Practical takeaways: if you love the look, buy a sturdy pair and distress it yourself, or choose second-hand denim that has worn naturally. Patch rips from the inside with iron-on fabric if they spread further than you want. And before paying a premium for a viral piece, ask how often you would really wear it.

Whether you find extreme cut-out jeans brilliant or baffling, they are a good reminder that fashion has always used shock to move the conversation along, and that today's outrage often becomes tomorrow's ordinary, if slightly toned-down, wardrobe staple.

Sources: ABC7 News, 3 May 2018: $168 ripped jeans little more than shreds of fabric; Global News: experimental denim designs; Wikipedia: Jeans (history, distressing, environmental impact); topic first covered by Viral Thread. Product photos: Carmar Denim and the respective brands.