Modern Jeanetics

While wandering through a department store the other day, I paused to look at what appeared to be a rack of used, bell-bottom jeans. The pants were badly frayed and torn at the bottom, and they had the type of fade patterns you might expect to see if someone had worn them out in the sun every day for years. Are department stores now selling used clothing, I wondered? Did some ancient hippie con the store into buying his glad rags? No, these were new jeans--pre-faded, pre-stressed or whatever they call it, but not "pre-worn." They were made that way. On purpose. And they weren't cheap.

All of which lead me to wonder about the factory workers in China who make nearly all "American" jeans. What must be going through their minds as they deliberately discolor and tear up these garments?

They must think that we are utterly insane.