I’ve been wanting a pair of distressed jeans (like forever) but wasn’t having much luck finding a pair that wasn’t too overly distressed. I either saw ones with a single rip in the knee or they were ripped from thigh to ankle (aka destroyed). Free People has some great distressed jeans and I came across a tutorial they made on how to do-it-yourself (thank you!). I went to a thrift store and found a pair of old boyfriend jeans for less than $10.00 and decided to distress them myself to make them more stylist. I felt good about recycling a pair of donated jeans, and if I messed up, it wasn’t going to cost me a lot of money. My two biggest learnings are that coarse sandpaper works wonders and that jeans are made of two layers, the denim is on top (that is the part you can literally sand away) and the white threads are on the bottom (that is the part you want to keep). Below are the step-by-step photos – I love how they turned out!
I used a pair of straight cut legs, but tapered legs look great too.
Tools: coarse sanding block, cardboard, razor blade, scissors and tweezers (but I ended up using my fingers to pull the blue threads out)
With the jeans on, mark on the jeans the top and bottom of your knee cap.
Making the mark with the jeans on is important, you don’t want to distress above the knee because it wouldn’t look natural.
Slide a piece of cardboard into the leg to protect the back of the jean.
Make 5-6 slits with a razor from the top of the mark to the bottom of the mark you made. Repeat on other leg.
Once the slits are made, I sanded the jean until the blue denim started to form clumps and then I pulled them off the white threads (you want to leave the white threads)
I sanded the coin pocket and other select areas that I wanted to look distressed.
Before and after!
Vintage boyfriend jeans, Jimmy Choos, Banana Republic belt and clutch.
