Confession: Embellished Jeans Fascination

I'm fascinated by embellished and decorated jeans, yet also horrified that anyone would think they were (1) appropriate to create, (2) appropriate to sell, or (3) appropriate to wear.

Thrift stores often have embellished jeans mixed in among all the Levi's and Lee's, but they're usually like the premium denim -- you might find one or two pairs on a rack of a hundred pairs of jeans. Yesterday, though, I found 3 pairs in a row, all in my size (not that I would wear them!). Check out these denim gems:

Embroidered football jeans

Painted Hawaiian jeans

Embroidered bird jeans

While the pair on the right is relatively understated as embellished jeans go, the pair on the left is about as embellished as you can get. The football theme starts with the "yard lines" around the pockets and continues past the football players down to the goal post at the ankle. The middle pair, with its Hawaiian theme, is my least favorite kind of embellished jeans: the painted jeans. Painted jeans almost always wind up looking like someone got bored in art class and started doodling away on their pants, instead of like an intentional fashion statement.

But no matter how funny I find these jeans to be, I swear I never wear anything like these!