Forever in Bluejeans: Why One Writer Left Denim Behind

Growing Up in Denim

The writer’s early jeans reflected different stages of his life. As a child, he wore roomy, secondhand Gap pairs marked with grass stains; as a teenager drawn to skateboarding and hard-core punk, he preferred dark, tight-fitting denim.

After college, he saved for stiff raw-denim jeans from French label A.P.C. He wore them until the fabric developed holes around the pockets and whisker-like fading at the knees.

Leaving Jeans Behind

In his mid-20s, as he started working, the writer gave up jeans. He felt preoccupied with being taken seriously and thought denim emphasized his youthful appearance, including a face still showing the effects of acne.

He switched to dress trousers: cotton in summer and wool in winter. Though wider than the J.Crew norm, they came only in black and navy, chosen so they would go unnoticed.

A Uniform Grows Stale

His tops changed over the years, moving between crewneck and V-neck sweaters and between striped and solid shirts. The trousers, by contrast, remained a constant for years. Eventually, he grew tired of them. He likened the feeling to eating the same coconut-flavored yogurt for a decade, until even thinking about it became unpleasant. He came to see the wool trousers as a stylistic void, occupying space that could have held something more varied or more likely to draw a closer look.