D.I.Y. Fashion: Destruct-O-Denim

04Jun08

A month or so ago I was in the mall and I overheard this grey haired gentleman tell a young sales associate that he wasn’t looking for jeans with rips, holes, or worn out looking in any way.  That he couldn’t understand why anyone would pay money for jeans that looked worn out or falling apart.  Hehe…each generation has their fashion hangups I guess.

As for me, I’m not against wearing destroyed denim, but most retail destoryed denim is either too destroyed for my taste, or really…just more than I want to pay for it.  Which has lead me to the pursuit of my first Do-It-Yourself denim project.

Since this would be the first time I’d try my hand and destroying my own denim I wanted to find a cheap pair of “donor” or “guinea pig” jeans.  This proved to be a quest in and of itself.  I searched department store sales, clearance racks, second hand clothing stores, Goodwill, for at least a month before I finally found the perfect candidates.  They couldn’t be just any cheap jeans, ’cause what if I liked them when I was done?  They’d have to fit right, descent quality, etc., etc.  Then while at Goodwill looking for a five gallon bucket (I’ll explain later) I took a pass by the men’s jeans and found the perfect pair of broken in Levi’s 501’s..and get this, Made in the U.S.A.  Yahtzee!  

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Disclaimer:
Just to let you all know.  The processes and techniques I’m sharing here aren’t new or secret in anyway.  If you search the internet on methods for destroying denim you’ll find plenty of sites that give suggestions on how.  Ultimately it’s all up to personal preference.  I’m just showing you what I did and the results.
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Depending on how new/old the jeans are you want to D.I.Y. destroy will determine how much softening you’ll want to do.  The newer or stiffer the denim you’ll want to wash with liquid fabric softener more.  On a new pair of jeans I’d say three washes is minimum to sufficiently soften the denim.  On the last wash use an entire bottle of fabric softener; so go cheap on the softner you buy.  Since my Levi’s were already well broken in I only did one wash using an entire bottle of softener.

Now that my 501’s were all clean and dry, I wanted to add a more vintage tint to them.  One method of doing this is with coffee.  Since I work part-time at Starbucks one of the great benefits we get as employees is a free pound of coffee beans a week.  I’d be using coffee to essentially stain my jeans a different color I wanted to go with beans with the most oil.  Staining clothes, oil, you get oil on your clothes you get a stain, oil stains…get it?  The roast variety with the most oil content is espresso.  So I spent my weekly markout on a bag of Seattle’s finest; one pound of espresso beans.  I had the beans ground for a Turkish coffee maker, which is the finest grind available on our bean grinders.  It’s one whole setting finer than espresso grind.  I figured the finer the grind the better as to ensure to get maximum extraction out of the beans once the water was added.  Go cheap on the coffee you use.  I went with Starbucks because it was free to me. You’ll want about pound to twenty ounces of coffee

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Note:
If you want to coffee dye your denim be sure to choose a pair that lighter in color.  Denim that is too dark won’t show the coffee tint
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You’ll need something to “brew” your denim in.  Hence the quest for a five gallon bucket.  If you don’t already have one, please, don’t go out and spend money on one.  The whole reason for a do-it-yourself project is frugality, right?  Well, that and total artistic freedom.  If you’re currently lacking a five gallon bucket hit up some of your favorite local restaurants.  I got mine from a Panera Bakery; it’s a pickle bucket.  Just tell them you (or your child, younger sibling, etc.) needs a five gallon bucket for a school project.  Chances are that the kitchen gets something delivered in a five gallon bucket and you might get lucky like me and they’ll have one that’s about empty.  Oh, and ask for the lid if it’s available.

 Once the bucket was clean and dry I dumped in my grounds and filled the bucket up half way with the hottest tap water I could muster.  After a good stir, it was time to dunk the denim.  After a few pokes and prods to get it in there I was able to keep the pair of jeans totally submerged in the brew.  I suggest letting them brew for at least twelve hours.  So overnight is good; stir occasionally.

Once time is up it’s time to get the jeans in to the wash.  I suggest first moving the bucket to the bathtub before removing the now caffeinated jeans from the bucket.  That way if you drip or splash it’s an easy clean up.  They’ll look uber dark, nearly black, but don’t worry.  A lot of it will wash out.  Try to ring out as much of the coffee water you can before sending them to the wash.  Wash them separately (of course), and I did mine on medium load setting just to be sure there was enough water to help slosh the jeans around and get all the grounds off.  I also sent mine through two rinse cycles.  Voila!  The new color is really nice; subtle yet noticeable.

Ready, Set, Destroy!

There are really know rules on what you can and can’t do or use to destroy a pair of jeans.  It’s all open to personal taste.  I found that I could get most of the look I wanted done with a cheese grater meant for hard cheeses and a seam ripper.  The seam ripper is perfect for getting at one thread at a time.  If you’re wondering how to get that look of removing the blue threads and just having the white threads running horizontally you can either use your seam ripper and start removing the vertical blue threads one at a time or take your T.M.D. (Tool of Mass Destruction) i.e. cheese grater, or sandpaper is also a popular choice, and work it in a horizontal motion.  By working with “the grain” of the white threads you will destroy the vertical blue threads first, leaving the white behind.  Just be sure to stop before you start wearing through the white ones too.  I found it best to get the general shape of the destruction I wanted started with my cheese grater, and then finish it off with the seam ripper.  A caveat I found using only a seam ripper is that the destruction will look too perfect, and unnatural.  So have at ‘em!

I took photos of my 501’s along each step of the process.  If you’d like to see their progression and what the process looks like you can see the photos here.

Filed under: D.I.Y., Denim   |  1 Comment
Tags: 501, D.I.Y., Denim, Destroyed Denim, Distressed Denim, jeans, Levi's