Tired of your boring, reliable pair of jeans? Got a bootcut monstrosity that hasn’t seen the light of day since the original Sugababes came out with their first record? Check out these easy step-by-step DIYs to update your old denim – all you’ll need for most of them is a pair of scissors, some chalk and a ruler.
Fray and crop the hems
Want to update your jeans quick? Try the frayed hem trick, as modelled in this picture by street style blogger Aimee Song – it works best on skinny or straight leg jeans as opposed to looser fits. Roll up your jeans cuffs to find out which inseam length flatters you most, then mark the spot with tailor’s chalk.
Remove your jeans, use a ruler to extend your chalk mark in a straight line and cut with scissors. Tug at the raw edge of the jeans to fray the hem, but don’t pull too much – the jeans will fray naturally with a few washes.
Turn them into shorts
Why shell out cash on a pair of cut-offs when you’ll only ruin them by sliding around in mud at a festival this summer? Just DIY your own from a pair of old jeans: first, figure out how short you want them and mark the length with chalk – remember to add an extra two inches if you want your shorts to have folded cuffs.
Fold your jeans in half with back pocket facing up, and use a ruler to mark a straight line across the denim. Cut across both legs to shorten; for a more flattering fit, cut at a V-shaped angle with the crotch at a longer length. Leave the raw edge if you want frayed hems or roll up the cuffs.
You can secure the cuff by sewing across or using iron-on hem tape like this one pound bargain from John Lewis. (It also works as a quickie fix if you need to hem your jeans and can’t be arsed with needle and thread.)
Distress your denim
Give your jeans a more roughed-up look by distressing them with a small razor blade or scalpel. Slice horizontally across the fabric and use the knife edge to gently scratch away at the denim threads, exposing the white threads which lend vintage denim that worn-in look. Make sure you’re not slicing through the back of the fabric. This YouTube tutorialshows the process in closer detail.
Go dot-crazy
Take a leaf from Henry Holland’s white polka-dot jeans and add some print to your denim. Blogger It’s Always Autumn used a bleach pen (you can get one from Amazon for £2.50) to create dots on an old pair of jeans – she uses a square piece of card to make sure the dots are all equidistant. Check out the full tutorial here, but be warned that the bleached print will be permanent. Best saved for a pair of jeans you aren’t too attached to.
Fade your jeans
Raw denim nerds evangelise about the perfect fade, which is basically shorthand for the natural crease lines in jeans that form over time (like these crotch whiskers). Usually that translates to going for months, if not years, without washing your jeans. Luckily, you can bypass all that crap with a sheet of sandpaper. Pull on your jeans and sit down; you’ll immediately notice creases bunching up in your jeans. Gently sand the wrinkles down for a “whiskered” look. You can also sand down the front of your jeans, the belt loops, zipper fly and pockets to match.
Follow Zing on Twitter @misszing
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.