MAKING YOUR DENIM LAST LONGER
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Full disclosure: I’ve never patched my jeans.
I’ve either never had to, or once they ripped I wore them as “camping” pants.
When my favourite AGOLDE jeans got a rip right in the butt, I was pretty well heartbroken. $200 jeans with a hole after 1 year?? I’m not going to knock the quality, because they’re great jeans. I just wore them into the ground! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve worn them. So they had their fair share of wear and tear. Camping, playing with kids, work, weekends, everything. You know what finally did them in? Spontaneous stretching at a friend’s house because the day before, I had done too many squats. LOL.
Regardless, I was NOT about to toss them. I wasn’t ready to give them up! And with my mandate to make my clothes last longer and only buy secondhand/ethical, it was pretty much my only choice. So out came the sewing machine!
Patching isn’t that hard. What’s hard is making it look really good. I still wanted to wear these to work. Check out my in-progress shots below!
I think I need to go back and give it some more artistic stitching (which I had been afraid to do at first) so it doesn’t look like an amateur job, but it’s been doing the job for now! Holes in the butt are a bit embarrassing, so it’s going to take some extra work to get it there! It’s not like a regular knee patch.
The burning question is: where did I get the scrap denim I used to patch? That’s where old painting jeans come in handy. I chopped off the cuff of one leg, and evened it out to keep some patches for future. Now I have a trendy raw hem on my reno pants!
The next denim project I had to take on was an old pair of GAP jeans that I bought right before the trend of duo-toned denim went full-force. I lived everything about them, in theory – but never found myself reaching for them. Why?
Turns out that being so attentive to my wardrobe has really helped me pinpoint why I’m not wearing certain pieces. And with this one, it was something SO small: the inseam was just a bit too long.
They’re a raw hem jean, so it took me all of 3 minutes to chop an inch off of the bottoms and turn them into true crop fit.
Wanna know something? I’ve been wearing them religiously since.
A 3-minute solution saved them from the “purge” pile.
That’s the great thing about treating your clothes as long-term ‘friends.’ You work at ’em instead of tossing them away!
The last tip for keeping your jeans for a long time is don’t wash them often. If you get good quality denim without a lot of spandex, you can go without washing them for quite a while, with minimal consequence. You’ll save water & energy, and it’s better for the garment in the long run.
Anyone else repair their own denim? Tell us your experiences below!