Dirty Denim Project 7: Weeks 10-13 and Conclusion

Week 10

December 6, 8, 9, 10

At this point, I decided to change the cuff on my jeans. Instead of a double roll, I switched to just one, deeper than the original. This felt like the most correct length for my jeans, and I didn’t mind the visible crease from the previous roll. The 10th was a snowy day. I tried to capture a picture of the snow on my jeans, but it had melted to water by the time I entered my room at work.

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Week 11

December 13, 14, 16, 17

Another week of wearing my jeans. Nothing new to report.

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Week 12

December 20, 21, 22, 24, 25

The 21st was day 40. All of the measurements remained the same, except for the inseam with the adjusted cuff (inseam 29” with 3.25” cuff).

On the evening of the 22nd, I folded up my jeans (for the first time), placed them in a plastic bag, and packed them in my suitcase. At the outset of this experiment, I wasn’t sure if I’d be traveling home for the holidays at all, or if so, whether I would bring my jeans. It didn’t seem likely that I would be willing to pack my jeans, nearly 3 months dirty, and I was fine with that. When it came to it, though, it didn’t seem right not to bring my jeans. I would have felt like I was leaving a part of myself behind. I was not at all willing to wear them on the plane, but ended up wearing them for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. (The dress I packed, in case I felt like being fancy, returned with me unworn.) I forgot to photograph my jeans after taking them off Christmas evening, but that’s OK.

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Week 13

December 29, 30

These were the only two days I worked this week, after returning from my travels and before the long New Year’s weekend. I only worked a half day on the 30th, and when I took them off early that afternoon, knowing it was the last time before their first wash, I was a little sad to be cutting the wear that final day short.

It was 45 days total. About halfway through, I set the goal of making it to at least 40, but felt I was behind that goal (in consideration of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays). I increased how much I wore them, without any issue, and surprised myself by surpassing this goal by five days.

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The First Wash

December 31, 2021

I decided on a delicate hand wash in the tub. This is what the true denim enthusiasts recommend. Washing in the machine can create fade lines based on how they fold and tumble in the machine; these are not desired, as the fade lines from wear on the body are. Initially, the idea of hand washing jeans seemed like a ridiculous hassle, and not something I cared to do, but the fact is, if you are only washing your jeans once every few months, it’s not too much trouble. I’d put so much into them—research, planning, purchasing the exact right denim, patterning, cutting, sewing, writing a blog, tracking each day I wore them, over the course of 3 months, for a total of 45 days—I just had to put as much care into their washing as I could.

I filled the tub with a few inches of lukewarm water. To this I added a splash of vinegar (to aid in killing bacteria) and a splash of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, citrus orange scent (I found this under my bathroom sink at the time when the pipe was leaking. I think I have had it since before I moved out of my parents’ house 8+ years ago, and it has moved with me every place I have lived since. I plan to make this the year that I finally use it up, and this was my first step.) In preparing to wash my jeans, I unfolded the cuff and discovered the only visibly dirty part of my jeans. Then, I turned them inside out.

I placed them in the tub and spent a few minutes swishing them around, rubbing them to make sure the water soaked in. Then, I set a timer for 45 minutes and let them soak.

After draining the murky, indigo-dyed water, I rinsed my jeans briefly under the tap, filled the tub once more for a few more swishes in pure water, then took them out. I gently rolled them in a towel to squeeze out as much water as I could, turned them right side out, and clipped them in a hanger to let them air dry.

Washing removed the creases that had set in above the front thighs and behind the knees. The overall color is slightly lighter. Rather than making the fades more apparent, from the dye washing out, they looked about the same. It was—almost—disappointing. Although I have never especially liked the look of pre-distressed jeans, with the lines of whiskering artificially applied, I was excited to see what my natural lines of wear would be. Currently: inconclusive; they need more wear, and only time will tell.

Measurements:

Original Day 40 First Wash Current

Waistband 27.5 28.75 27.75 28

Hips 37.5 39.5 38.5 39

Thigh 23 23 22.5 22.5

Knee 16.25 16.25 16 16

Calf 14.5 14.5 14.25 14.25

Ankle 12.5 12.5 12 12.5

Inseam 30 29 31.25 29.25

Cuff 2 3 - 2

Clean Jeans

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Conclusion

“If you’re a denim person, […] someplace inside you’ve got heart, you’ve got respect, you’ve got appreciation. You’ve got a conscience.” (Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon, page 249)

As I laid out my original experiment, I stated that I would be making it up as I go. I did not want to be constrained by rigid guidelines or any definite goal. However, I did clearly state three months as my timeline, and once that was set, I was determined to see it through. I thought it would be a real challenge to force myself not to wash my jeans in such a time period, but what I found was that that was not difficult at all. At the end of three months, I felt like I could keep going. I almost didn’t want to wash my jeans yet. But I did wish to be done with this heavily documented experiment.

In the beginning, I was reading lots of other people’s blogs about raw denim, and eventually ended up purchasing three books on denim and one on fast fashion. I started with Denim Branded: Jeanswear’s Evolving Design Details by Nick Williams and Jenny Corpuz. This was a great visual reference for developing the design of my jeans, and included many fun facts and history (some of which I previously shared). I then read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline. I enjoyed this book, although much of it seemed fairly obvious to me, from the perspective of someone who sews. The most interesting statistic was: “According to a 2010 national survey in ShopSmart magazine, one in four American women own seven pairs of jeans, but we only wear four of them regularly.” (page 121, kindle edition). Without counting, I felt like I was that woman exactly. Now I own even one more pair, and as of the last few months, only wear that one (I can’t quite remember when I stopped wearing my other jeans, but it has been a while).

My next denim book purchase was Denim: An American Story by David Little. This one kind of got to me. The images were largely from the 90s, showing its age, and I felt like David Little put a little bit too much of himself into his work. In the introduction, I read—and re-read—this section many times: “Buying a new pair of jeans is almost reincarnation. We may never have another dog like the one we loved and lost, or another romance like the one that grew old and died, but we can always get another pair of jeans.” I found this juxtaposition of ideas disturbing and disgusting. I couldn’t make it be OK, and read through the rest of the book with continuing disturbance and distrust for the author.

This wasn’t the first time on my denim journey that I wanted to halt and walk away. When I was setting out my plan, I questioned how long I should let the experiment go. One problem with waiting too long before washing is that the fabric can become brittle and tear. I found somebody’s blog post about that (since forgotten, and I won’t try to find it again). The post itself was informative and fine, but the series of comments devolved into a string of body shaming that truly terrified me. Equally terrifying were the blogs where the denimheads laid out all of the requirements for a pair of jeans to pass their quality standards, such as machines used for sewing, weight of denim, and fiber content of the thread. This was giving me Patrick Bateman vibes, and I didn’t like it.

The last denim book I read was Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon by James Sullivan. I enjoyed this one, although it included a lot of repeat information. It had few pictures, but the writing was better than the rest.

“Exactly why do we invest so much—so much meaning, time, money—in something as elementary as a pair of jeans? The answer lies in the fact that jeans are mutable. Each pair changes as it ages, and “blue jeans” in the abstract have changed dramatically over time, evolving from function to form, from drudgery to romance. […] Faded, frayed, molded to the peculiarities of our bodies, jeans show the work, even where there may not have been any. “They say, ‘Yes, I’m alive! […] I have life, I have character, I have substance. You can see it. Look, here it is!’ ” (page 249, kindle edition)

Here is one thing I know I didn’t do: I never followed through on my plan to do further research on the water consumption of my denim. Perhaps I felt like I had already done enough. Perhaps I feared that the further I went on that journey, the harder it would be to do my job. I am very rarely offered the opportunity to state my opinion about fabrics at work. Designers choose the fabric, and I have to work with it. If I became too much of a fabric snob, work would be difficult. The best I can do is try to make better personal choices when buying fabric or clothing. I can be willing to spend a little more money and effort on a product I feel good about. And if that means buying less, that would be great too.

In the last few weeks, as I knew the experiment was coming to a close, I started pondering what I would write in this final post. I distinctly remember a day at work when I spent a good amount of time writing some beautiful passages in my head while ironing lots of fabric. I remember that moment of meditation, but I don’t remember what I had in my mind. (I would like to start carrying a notebook with me wherever I go, so I can at least take notes when inspiration strikes.) Basically, I was thinking about my shift towards finding the beauty in imperfections. It wasn’t just about wanting to find signs of wear in my jeans, although that may be where it started. There was a day at work when I had my hands on the dressing gown that I made for Scrooge two years ago. It had been through two productions of A Christmas Carol and was being prepared to be used for another. Looking at it closely, feeling the fabric, I could see signs of wear; I could see it wasn’t perfect anymore (although if you asked me—who made it—it never was). But it seemed better, more authentic, more fitting for the character and story. 

And it’s not just clothes I’ve made. Anything that shows wear, that has a visible history, started to look more beautiful to me—the yellowing of pages in a favorite book, the pockmarked holes in my bulletin board, the comforting embrace of a 13-year-old nubbly sweatshirt. I do feel as if in my past, I was almost always drawn to the shiny and new. But at the same time, I have feelings of guilt about that, and don’t want to be wasteful. This shifting of attitude helps. New isn’t always better. Gray hairs show wisdom.

So what is the real conclusion of this three month experiment? For one thing, I now know that it’s not over; it’ll take a lot more than three months to see real change in my jeans, and they’ll continue changing all the time. It’s a process. Regardless, this blog about my jeans is over.

For another, I felt empowered by attempting to make changes, however small, to try to improve myself and this world. It is very easy to see problems and point fingers at other people for not trying to fix them; it is much harder to point a finger at yourself and admit to all the ways in which you could do better. I may not be able to tell others to turn off their sprinklers, but I can flush my toilet less. That was challenging for me, but I did it anyway. 

I’m also trying to come to terms with my feelings about the mountains. Maybe, if I stop seeing them as a barrier, they can almost be kind of beautiful. Maybe, for that one minute at sunset, when the light of the sun makes them glow orange against a sky of blue—maybe that is beautiful.