When I’m wearing jeans and cross my legs or I mess with the cross threads at the worn knee, the diagonal weave of denim always captures my imagination, reminding me of diagonal “desire paths” bending off the well worn main trails through the grassy open spaces near my apartment. The diagonals of desires, of things that both sustain us and those that excite us, converge in jeans. And over time, the visceral nature of raw edged denim has told a compelling story for creatives. A hole in knee of one’s favorite old jeans, the white whisps of yarn stretched tight over the thigh, they narrate a commitment, of badassery, of daring, of punk philosophy. But as they spin the tale of poets and rockers, the trillion dollar global fashion industry appropriated and mass marketed the “distressed” look, a counterfeit, a faux shorthand for individuality and creative experience from which wear and tear is supposedly assumed to have resulted.
Whether earned over time or purchased, worn and torn denim is evocative. The edges of denim fray when left unhemmed, but do not unravel much due to the nature of the weave. Most of what we consider blue jeans fabric is made using a textile weave called twill, created with a diagonal pattern of parallel ribs in fabric. This weave creates a strong and stable interlocking pattern, which makes it ideal for work clothing because it is so durable. We often see twill in many work pants, robust blue jeans/denim, chinos and many military fatigues. It is the fabric of labor, and so the dreams for which one labors.
And in being a textile of the working world, twill tells a tale beyond the bad ass and the rock star. It tells of the glory of struggle, as in James Oppenheim’s poem, Bread and Roses, representing the food we need for our bodies to survive, and the beautiful we need for our hearts to aspire. He writes,
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
[because]…
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.Of course we do not just work to pay the bills, to buy the bread– we work to afford our passions, to have the roses. We work to travel to the ocean or purchase the fabric for a quilt or customize a vintage car, to express our artistic side and fulfill the aspirations of our hearts in those metaphorical roses. And often we do so in coveralls and chinos, marching onward for both sustaining life and sustaining soul.
People still hesitate to wear the ripped twill to the office. We can still bring the wild energy of the well worn and loved jeans into the workplace while maintaining professionalism by embracing raw edged denim work in
applique or the subtle frayed hem. It is a substantive way to keep your edginess and creative spirit communicated out as many people move, perhaps reluctantly, back to in person meetings and full time at the office. Traditionally a space for conservative attire, wearing more artistic pieces and raw edges in the office space matters, reasserting some alternative preferences and reiterating that to fully live, we must move toward both bread AND roses.
