It's a distressed world out there!

**F5G WIZ** · Apr-27-2007, 6:41pm

My kids bought me a couple new shirts this week, the two button, colored, short sleeve golf tee type. #Wore one for the first time today and happened to look down at the sleeve while sittin in a restraunt and noticed there was a small worn hole at the end of the sleeve. As I looked a bit closer I noticed quite a few areas on the shirt that looked, well, distressed. I told my oldest daughter, "good job pickin out my new shirt, it's defective, gonna have to take it back." #I got that look from her, you know the look your teenage daughter will give thier out of touch dads from time to time. #Well it seems that it was supposed to be like that. #Looks like the distressed Mandolin look is rubbing off on the fashion world as well! #Startin' to wonder if my old distressed pickup truck is going up in value as well. I kinda doubt it. I guess that since I am starting to get a bit distressed myself as I get older I should fall right into the distressed style but I just can't see wearing one of my "new" distressed shirts to church sunday morning. #Just some random ramblings from the peanut gallery. #Hope you all have a great weekend.

Darrin

**Chris Biorkman** · Apr-27-2007, 6:49pm

I recently bought a pair of jeans from the Gap that had two purposely made holes in the front that I didn't really notice until I wore them the first time. They got bigger and bigger until one day last week when I put them on and my big toe got caught in one and I almost ripped the leg off. Never again!

**Greenmando** · Apr-27-2007, 7:06pm

They are even selling distressed baseball hats now.

**MikeEdgerton** · Apr-27-2007, 8:04pm

Guys, they've been selling distressed clothing for years. It predated the Nirvana grunge guys. I first saw distressed jeans in the early 80's. It's not a new concept.

**F5G WIZ** · Apr-27-2007, 8:14pm

I can remember having jeans with holes in them when I was a kid, growing up in the 80's but we usually put them there ourselves!

**MikeEdgerton** · Apr-27-2007, 9:07pm

In the 60's if you bought a pair of Levi's jean you could stand them up in the corner and they'd stand there all by themselves because the fabric was so stiff. By the late 70's, early 80's they were "stone washing" them to make them softer and so they'd look used when you bought them. It was uncool to wear new Levis. By the 80's they were selling grunge jeans with the holes already in them.

Distressing musical instruments for normal retail sale is relatively new compared to clothing. I'm sure there was distressing going on in the background for years as people "manufactured" vintage instruments. It's silly to think that it didn't happen in this market as it did in the antique furniture market. I'm sure that many luthiers legitimately distressed parts for repairs so they didn't stand out like a sore thumb. Frank Ford's frets.com has an article describing how Frank painted a new brace with coffee to age it a bit. I've used that dozens of time myself.

**Greg H.** · Apr-27-2007, 10:11pm

Hmmm, so am I to take it that I should go and thank the deer carcass for distressing my truck?

**Jim Rowland** · Apr-27-2007, 10:28pm

It's been around for a long time. Some World War II pilots I worked with told me about flight cadets bending their hats in half and sitting on them at every opporunity during flight training so that when they got their wings the hats would have the "50 mission crush" that came from clamping headphones over the hat during real flight operations.
Jim