The Raggedy Look is IN Fashion?

Can you believe the distressed look (Optional link to informative and amusing article on shredded and/or faded) is back in fashion for clothing?  Some say fashion is an art-form and like art, it can say something about the current environment.  If that is so, are people making some sort of commentary on the poor, starved, or homeless in our society by wearing shredded clothing? 

Is this a new look?  NO!  Faded jeans and/or ripped trends were in and out between the 60’s and the 80’s. Back then it was supposed to be a non-verbal holdover from anti-establishment protests rather than the fashion statement it turned into later.  

I can remember my younger brother getting a new pair of jeans, washing them with bleach to make them look stonewashed, and then cutting a slit in one of the knees to look hip. Our mom nearly had a cow when she saw what he had done to the jeans she just bought.  My little brother was horrified when my mom took his jeans, put an iron-on patch over the cut knee, and made him wear the jeans to school that way.  When he complained about how she ruined his jeans, mom informed us all that none of her children were to go anywhere looking like a torn-up rag doll.  To which dad added if anyone was caught deliberately destroying good clothes, they would forfeit their allowance until he was repaid for the clothing item. (Not his exact words but definitely what he meant.) What other ways did dad kill our desire for current and future fashions?  Since a few of our clothes were hand-me-downs, dad also made us wear belts to make sure any over-sized pants did not slip down, fall off, or show our underwear - as is also fashionable now.  Cruel parents! Right!? (LOL- See a funny pants video here.)  As you may have guessed from mom’s comment, “pre-owned” clothes with holes either got patched before next wearer or were repurposed by being: cut-off/hemmed for summer shorts for my brothers, torn apart for dad to use as shop rags, or given to my grandmother to use as quilt pieces.

Frankly, I think some of the clothes I see on the streets would be seen as embarrassing to a down on luck person who would not choose to wear anything that accentuates their situation.  Even the most poverty-stricken would prefer not to go around with such big raggedy holes in their clothing because they would be more undressed than covered.  People with limited incomes know clothes are meant to protect you from sun or cold.  After all, how do holes help ward off nature’s harsh environment?

 So why do the rich, and those trying to imitate them or make an artsy statement, waste their money on these fashions?  If they want to really make an important statement, they should donate the money to a charity rather than pay a designer for torn shreds.  Instead of buying clothes that should be in the trash bin: feed the hungry, house the poor, or work to save the environment.

NOTE:  Please excuse the excessive linking to dictionaries for terms and phrases in this post.  I thought it might be necessary since some fashionable people may not be aware of the definitions.