Trendsetter, Old-School Style

These are seriously perfect.

In high school my girlfriends and I used to go to the Levi Surplus store at the start of every summer.  We would dig through the racks of used men's Levis 501 button flys, looking for the ones that were as broken in as possible, always a few sizes too big so they would hang just right off of our bony hips.  We would cut off the legs and fold up the cuffs, and then we would get busy with sandpaper, razor blades, and a little bleach here and there to make them super soft and super faded.  We would basically hang out around one of our houses for the first week of summer washing, bleaching and destroying a perfectly nice pair of jeans.  Then we would put them on while they were wet and sit there, miserable in soggy bottoms like a baby with a wet diaper, eating chips and watching Oprah until they dried.  Then we would start the process over.  The end product was a perfect pair of baggy cut-off Levis that looked adorable with everything we owned.  We would wear them the entire summer, not caring that we all looked the same because we all looked so damn cool.  Long tan legs everywhere, cute sandals and belts, faded t-shirts.  Damn, we were friggin awesome.

Lately, I have gotten a wild hair and have an outfit craving (do you get those, too?) for an old pair of beat up Levis that will make me look as cool as I did back then. I like to think the larger buttocks I now have will only add to the cool factor. Plus, I have the perfect Anthopologie loafers and Gap boyfriend t-shirt and Grandpa cardi.  I just need the perfect Levis. 

I am already fantasizing about them.  Now that I am a grownup, I think that I will not cut them off, and settle instead for rolling up big cuffs for the summer.  Then I will have an equally awesome pair of warm jeans to wear with my Frye boots and a kicky little hat during the winter.  Smart, right?

So because I am really tall and because I am no longer in possession of the bony hips of my youth, I ordered a giant pair of super long Levis Shrink-to-Fits from eBay for cheap and will begin my bleach and sandpaper experimentation as soon as they arrive next week.  Luckily this whole process will coincide with P being out of town on a business trip.  He would surely not understand the value of paying for a pair of new jeans and then trying to destroy them and would probably be equally perplexed at the sight of me sitting around in soggy britches.  Nor would he appreciate that this will be, by far, not even close to the strangest thing I have gotten up to when he is on a business trip. (binge-eating ice cream while cranking showtunes, crying, and trying on your late mother's clothing anyone?) But, as I always say, you can't put a price on happiness or perfect pseudo-vintage denim that squeezes your buns just right, even if it means a little sweat-equity. And wine.  Don't forget about the wine.

So I am already planning my wine-jeans-destruction party (where you drink the wine and destruct the jeans, not the other way around) for next week; I only wish that I had talked friends into ordering some, too so that it could be like old times. I guess they will just have to be jealous of my perfect jeans.  *Excited!*