The Best Distressed Jeans For A Night Out

Okay so we had a whole debate going about whether distressed jeans are even a night out pant, or if that’s just something we all agreed to pretend because ripped denim looked cool in 2016 and nobody’s re litigated it since. My argument was full length, no rips above the knee, save your dignity for the bathroom line. The counterargument, presented via an actual photo dump in the group chat, was three different nights where the person wearing cropped, heavily distressed jeans looked genuinely incredible dancing, standing, and once sprinting to catch a car that almost left without her. That settled it for basically everyone. I’m still a little bit stuck on my old position, ngl.

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about with this category, it’s not the rips, it’s the queue.

You will stand in a bathroom line for twenty five minutes in these jeans and by minute ten you’ll know if you made a good call. The pairs with knee slits that gape open when you sit did NOT hold up, everything shifted around, I was adjusting the whole night like I had a personal relationship with my own kneecap. The ones that won stayed put whether I was sitting, standing, or doing the thing where you’re half dancing half holding a drink above your head so nobody spills on you.

Rolled hem versus full length actually caused more of a fight than the rips did. Full length looked better in every photo we took standing still. Rolled looked better the second anyone actually moved, because a full length hem drags on the floor of a bar bathroom and that’s a whole biohazard conversation I don’t want to have twice in one post. The counterexample that won that argument too, someone showed up in a rolled hem with pointed heels and it read expensive, not lazy, which none of us expected going in.

Shoe wise, heels won the night, sneakers lost it slowly over four hours. A chunky heel with the distressed denim looked intentional, sneakers with the same jeans started reading like laundry day by 1am, sorry to the sneakers, they tried.

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I’ll say the gamble part out loud, because I promised myself I would. The super destroyed pair, more missing fabric than actual jean at that point, is a specific person’s jeans, not a universal night out pant.

It looked unreal on one specific body in one specific lighting setup and slightly like a costume on two other people who tried it in the same week. If you know you’re that person, buy them. If you’re not sure, you’re probably not that person yet, and that’s fine, there’s a less extreme rip for you two racks over.

We didn’t fully agree by the end. Most of us conceded the distressed jean earns its spot on a night out. One holdout still thinks it’s a daytime pant wearing a going out outfit’s confidence. She might be right. She’s just outnumbered.