10 Ways to Revamp Your Jeans
By Megan Mahoney, Cover Art by Cassandra Wong
Denim is timeless - ergo one of the most reliable pieces for revamping. With so many styles, washes, and cuts, it’s almost impossible to not find a pair you love, and not find a fresh way to give them a new life. Whether it be my mom’s old jeans, a pair that I have thrifted, or simply a pair that I have grown bored of, I can always seem to find something perfect for repurposing. Just as there is so much variety in jeans, there are an abundance of ways in which you can update them and transform them into something new. Below are a few ways that I have revamped jeans, all reproducible in your home or dorm!
Distressing your jeans is one of the easiest methods around- if you are capable of holding scissors, you can do it. It's an interesting way to update your jeans, but conveniently requires no sewing skills! If you want your jeans to stay relatively intact and a bit more formal, simply fraying the bottom hems is perfect. Just cut the bottom hem off and distress the edge with whatever you have: tweezers, sandpaper, the same scissors you previously used. Agitate the fabric and loose threads till they are the desired messiness. If you want to do more, go for cutting rips or gaps - maybe even make a cheeky butt slit.
Embroidery is an amazingly simple and flexible way to make any article of clothing more unique. I also find that it is a relaxing task to do while watching TV. You can embroider practically everything - a bag, mask, or in this case, jeans. For an explanation of embroidery basics, click here.
On Tik Tok, along with tie dye, bleach made its way from laundry rooms intentionally onto fabric. Although you have to be careful, because bleach can damage and weaken the fabric, it's a super easy way to redo jeans with what you already have at home. The drawings above show two styles of bleached denim that trended on tik tok: one leg bleached and stripes of bleach. For the left drawing, you cut out sections of each leg, bleach them, and resew them on. You can even ‘paint’ with bleach to create cool designs, however, bleach tends to bleed which makes fine lines and designs challenging. Bleach is fun to play around with because you can use it similar to a dye, creating ombre offects and changing the colors, but through retracting color rather than adding it.
Painting your jeans is a fun way to really show your creativity. It is super popular with denim jackets, but also can be done on pants. For one pair of my pants, I chose to just paint simple stars, but you can really go crazy with what you paint. I would recommend using a mixture of acrylic paint and fabric softener (in a one to one ratio), so that the paint doesn't crack when the fabric bends and stretches.
Patchwork art can add a lot of personality to your denim. If you have any scrap fabric lying around, cutting it into fun shapes and sewing it onto jeans can really transform them. I find that exposed and contrast stitching can make the design even more interesting.
I experimented with turning the bottom inside-out on a pair of my jeans this winter and loved it. Again, a super simple way to change up a pair of jeans by redoing the bottom. It almost looks like a giant cuff, since it's the inside of the denim exposed, but all I did was cut across each leg of the pants horizontally, flipped it inside out and sewed it back on. I also chose to distress the bottom hem.
A trend that I have seen all over is jeans with this staggered/overlapping waist. This is a great way to rework a pair of jeans if they are too big; however, it is more challenging and basic sewing skills would be helpful. There are several ways to do this, but if you want the front button to still be functional, you can just remove the initial button and resew it wherever you want the waistband to now lay. Then, you also need to create a hidden closure in the inside of the waistband. To do this you can add a new button back to where the first button was, and create a small button hole on the inside most layer of the waistband. Alternatively, you can move the first button so it creates the desired look, but then sew elastic onto the waistband and previous button location, so that you can just pull them on and off without having to undo any buttons. You may need to fiddle with the zipper and possibly take it out if there are any funky lumps.
Many denim lines have chosen to utilize the back pockets to indicate their brand. Back pockets are a great opportunity to spice up jeans without altering their overall fit. There are tons of ways to change the pockets that require varying levels of sewing. Many of the previously mentioned techniques can be applied specifically to the pockets; whether it is swapping them out for a fun fabric, seam ripping them off and reattaching them slightly askew, turning them inside out, removing them completely, adding embroidery, or bleaching them.
Although this method can require some adjusting and basic sewing skills, it is relatively easy to create your own flare jeans from a straight pant. If the pants are oversized, you can just taper them in around the knee and leave the bottom wide. However, if they are tight and don't have extra fabric, you can rip up the seams, and add in a triangle panel.
Undone/creased hems: Another very similar trick - both in its simplicity and look - is seam ripping the stitches from the bottom hem of your jeans and then ironing it flat. This shows the variance in colors through the creases that used to be the hem. If you don’t have a seam ripper, small scissors work just as well.