Comfortably breezy. Casually rebellious. Artfully tattered. Shredded denim has become a sort of unofficial uniform of this generation.

I have two pairs of ripped jeans. They are the most expensive denim purchases I’ve made to date, both falling around the $50 range. I am well aware I could easily spend hundreds on a single pair, but since I graduated from paying around $10 for jeans I wore in high school to $35 jeans from Gap (on sale) post college, $50 still feels like a splurge. I find the question often posed by the older generation to be valid. “Why pay more for clothing that’s already destroyed?”

Seriously, what is the draw? Whatever it is, I’m certainly not immune to it. They feel like an appropriate amount of casual and edgy for most activities. My parents never would have purchased them for me when I was younger and there is a small sense of power in being able to buy them for myself. Personally, I like the understated don’t-give-a-shit vibe they give off, and honestly, given the lack of rigor in most of my daily activities, wearing jeans to the point of them developing and earning tears on their own just takes too damn long. I prefer to think it’s impatience and not laziness that brings so many of us to shell out the money for that perfectly lived-in vibe that’s become a style icon.

I’ve tried the DIY route a couple times, and while fun, I never feel like they turn out quite right. I’ve had better luck with creating cut-offs than full blown distressed jeans.

I’m curious. If you’re a devout ripped jeans supporter, what’s your why?