Stained jeans a fashion statement that’s all wet
There are two ways to partake in this hot fashion trend.
1. You can get on a waiting list to pay over a grand for a pair of “Stain” jeans. 2. You can drink from a garden hose for 10 minutes, watch a horror flick with lots of jump scares and become a trendsetter for free by wetting your pants.
Fashion operates with one rule: a sucker is born every minute. Those suckers will drop hundreds on designer denim with fake grass stains. Or see-through dungarees made from plastic so it looks like your legs are encased in straws.
Gucci’s fake grass and Topshop’s see-through jeans both sold out when they were released in recent years.
The same is true this month for British designer Jordanluca, which can’t meet demand for their new jeans featuring “a stonewash stain on the crotch.”
Incontinence is now a fashion statement.
Was it Thomas Jefferson who said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve”? That quote should be attributed to Levi Strauss. The jeans you buy are the jeans you deserve. Do you want a pair of versatile 501s that can be worn to the ballpark or office without strangers doing a double take in the general vicinity of your genitals? Or do you want to deceive the world into believing you have an overactive bladder?
I can already hear the pushback to this rant. What’s the problem? Nobody is forcing you to wear “peestain denim,” as this new trend is dubbed on TikTok. This is a PR stunt. It’s fringe. It will never gain critical mass. Get a grip. Get a life.
To which I must ask: Are you insane?
Pee-stain denim is a movement we all missed while using the lavatory. Three years ago, Snopes investigated the following claim: “Shoppers can buy a pair of handstained jeans that look as though the wearer has peed their pants.”
Snopes slapped a “True” rating on the claim.
That involved a company called “Wet Pants Denim.” A glance at the site throws up a few, well, yellow flags. The marketing seems more satirical than commercial: “Wet Pants Denim delivers the appearance of authentic urinary incontinence without the commonly experienced discomfort. Wet Look, Dry Feel.”
My skepticism also hit the bowl upon discovering payment can be made with a cryptocurrency called “PissCoin.” People, I’m not sure how the world survives the next 20 years.
Climate change, war, economic uncertainty, political polarization, disinformation, deep fakes, the Kendrick-Drake beef.
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed and powerless. But we can all use our voices today. We can all join hands and stand atop a pile of Pampers to reject simulated pee stains and PissCoin.
We put on our pants one leg at a time after we’ve done our business.
Fashion is a fantasyland full of pack animals.
If something sells, someone hawks a knock-off. Nordstrom once released a pair of $600 “Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans.” The selling point? Fake mud splotches. Vetements created a buzz with a new line of denim.
For $2,000, the fashion forward could now moon at will thanks to a butt crack zipper.
Somewhere, a designer is hunched over a light table and sketching toeless socks or a threeheaded chapeau with bullet exit wounds. Who can blame them? They know Gucci made a fortune with $1,750 overalls that looked like the wearer had been dragged by mules across the artificial turf at Rogers Centre.
First, designers turned to acid wash and I said nothing. You can buy jeans that are baggy enough to get you airborne in gale force winds and skinny enough to destroy your chance of ever having children. Fine. But I have to say something now because these pee stains are selling like hotcakes.
Fashion is supposed to conceal bodily functions — not celebrate them. Nobody wants Soiled Swim Trunks. But since denim is where crazy ideas start, don’t be surprised if Hanes soon releases undershirts emblazoned with simulated pit stains.
Many moons ago, a Star editor asked me to attend Toronto Fashion Week and write about it as an outsider. This was not hard. Outsider? It was like I landed on a different planet in which the official language was air-kiss and models strutted the catwalk in getups dreamed up by drunk aliens.
In one show, the leggy models were weighed down by heavy textiles. It takes skill to strike an insouciant pose when you are wearing a carpet.
But you know what I did not see at Fashion Week? Someone who appeared to not know the location of the public restrooms. Jeans that cost as much as a laptop so you can look like you peed your pants? There can be only one explanation in 2024.
The world is coming apart at the wet seams.