Published by Celestyna Brozek under Blog, Clothing

Jeans are like the tattoos we wanted to get, like the scars we secretly wish we harbored – signs of a life dangerously lived, but lived to the fullest.

I remember way back when things started showing up in stores pre-distressed, brand new pants with holes in the knees and frayed cuffs – my mother shook her head and I laughed – but that was a manifestation of paying for history, for proof of an existence that was hard on denim. Your jeans are your story, they show the world who you are, where you’ve been, and how hard you’ve lived.

The history of America can practically be told through denim. The uniform of the rebellious youth of the 40s and 50s, the uber-customized jeans of the 60s and 70s, the designer denim of the 80s… The history of my life definitely can be. Jeans made me cool in high school and don’t laugh – during one of the hardest times in my life I made “positive pants” – I stencil-bleached a pair of jeans with affirming quotes – pictures below.

My denim chronography

Jeans I've customized

And I don’t post many videos, but watch this one by Takayuki Akachi – it is beautiful and amazing. Kind of like the uniform project – one pair of jeans, two years, fifty countries – you see the denim recording every event. In the end, it is as imbued with history as a photo album. It makes keeping clothes for a long time seem really deep and poetic.

” Traveling Denim ” Recording color fade for two years from Takayuki Akachi on Vimeo.

Hope your jeans are also your chronographers – and all the rips are real…and the story they tell is EPIC…send us a pic if you’d like – we’ll feature it on our facebook.