What Is Ripped Jeans?

Ripped Jeans: The Chief Minister of Uttrakhand Tirath Singh Rawat enraged a lot of women on social media when he implied that women who wear ripped do not set a good example for society and the kids at their home.

Rawat was reported saying," If this kind of woman goes out in society to meet people and solve their problems, what kind of message are we giving out to society, to our kids? It all starts at home. What we do, our kids follow."

This started a social media campaign called #rippedjeanstwitter in which several women shared their pictures wearing ripped jeans. Some of them even posed with their kids to show disagreement with the CM. Celebrities such as Gul Panag also joined in by sharing their own pictures and members of the opposition parties such as Priyanka Chaturvedi of Congress and member of parliament from Samajwadi Party, Jaya Bachchan also voiced her opinions against Rawat. She said that one cannot judge people by the clothes they wear and that it comes from a bad mindset which can encourage crimes against women.

CM Rawat on Friday tried to explain his quote as he said that his statement was misappropriated. He said that he doesn't have anything against jeans but its the ripped jeans that he objects to. He further said, "I have come from a normal rural family and our schools followed a certain discipline and dress code. Whenever our pants got ripped while going to school, we used to fear how will we face our Guru ji and used to cover the torn part. Nowadays when children buy jeans worth Rs 2000-4000, he first sees whether the jeans are ripped. If it isn’t, he goes home and runs scissors on it. So what bad did I say."

So, what is ripped jeans?

According to the conventional definition, there is a slight difference between distressed, worn denim and ripped jeans. While distressed and worn out were initially used for denim that was manufactured in a way that give a rugged look to it but ripped is what buyers created when they started to make cuts on their jeans after taking it home.

At first, it started with a cut on the knee but now one can choose to cut whenever they want as the fashion trend has involved that way. Just like how there is barely any difference between distressed and ripped as manufactures have adapted to the needs of the buyers are creating ripped style jeans that look just organic.

An individual doesn't necessarily have to use scissors to make cuts as the denim and get ripped on its own with frequent use over a long duration. This is exactly what used to happen in the 1970s when working-class people used to wear off their jeans until the garment completely fell apart. The ripped/distressed jeans only came into fashion when punk and rock artists started to wear them on stage. Their fans started to adopt the style and eventually, it became popular.

Over the years, ripped jeans has mostly been in fashion. When it started to fade, it made a comeback within a decade.