Paranoia & Americana

Crying Over Ripped Denim

Heartbreak can happen in an instant. Brutally and without warning, a handful of seconds may strip you of a peaceful week or a joyous day. Last week this happened to me in the crisp exaggerated ripping sound I heard as I felt the tear below the back pocket of my favorite jeans. They were a Japanese selvedge denim pair from Visvim, 01D4 Fluxus Denim with a snakeskin back tab, a perfect boot cut, meticulous repairs, reconstructions all along the front, and in retrospect, suspiciously few on the back. It was a very serious loss.

The pair when I bought them

“Duh, jeans rip” you may say. Let me tell you a story. In the 90s’, Hiroki Nakamura was visiting Alaska. Nakamura was an obsessive of vintage Americana, particularly the world and styles of the outdoors, denim collecting, and military wear. He stepped foot onto Alaskan soil in an outfit of poise and poignancy: rare red wings and Levis 501’s before they ditched the old looms, in other words, an ensemble of choice Americana. And yet to his distress Nakamura appeared innocuous in the American crowd. What defined the “specialness“ of one pair of red wing boots over the next? Why did that back strap change a pair of Levi’s? What made these garments last? Visvim was founded on this question; an amalgamation of international traditionalisms and craft legacies that last. French workwear, American craft, Japanese Boro and dyeing, Indigenous weaving and beading, and a load of Nakamura’s collected international references compose Visvim collections. Beyond Visvim’s reinterpretation of the old in every garment is a dissertation. Not something as course as a “brand message“, a garment-specific philosophy of what that piece should be and what it can be.

“The more you use something, the more you see it becoming a reflection of your own character, and you begin to feel an inexplicable fondness for the object” proclaims a dissertation entitled “OLD VISVIM NEVER DIES“. It took me a while for my pair to become my favorite for this exact reason: I was scared at first of my pair. Visvim is expensive. John Mayer and Eric Clapton collect and I only acquired my pair through a combination of birthday money and a cheap-ish Grailed discovery. But, as Nakamura postulates it was through wear that I cherished my pair, for its exorbitant details, the heightened patching of its wear, the implication of paint, and its ubiquity. I could wear them anywhere, and I began to.

“So you thought a pair of jeans wouldn’t rip“? Exactly. I was a romantic and a fool and I saw something that felt perfect and wanted to believe that it was. I thought Visvim could protect me. This is what I get for believing in the story, believing in something special, and for believing in a philosophy. Ripped jeans, an exposed ass, and a broken heart.

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Also last week I was assigned to read a paper by Eve Sedgewick entitled Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading. In the piece, Sedgewick defines our world, political, social, and academic, as being defined by paranoia. Paranoia infects how we live, and thus it affects how we read. For Sedgewick, there is paranoid reading, i.e. one in which the reader enters on guard, searching for justification of expectation, and always attempting to deflect surprise, versus reparative readings that embrace the holistic, situational, and open aspect of art. Our professor greets us the next day. “So“, he asks, “what kind of reader are you“?

If my relationship with Visvim tells me anything, it is to answer that I am not paranoid. But then, is Visvim’s simply a philosophy that resonates with me? What of Dolce & Gabbana’s attempt to seem hip or the Golden Goose promise for environmentalism? I certainly didn’t entertain any positive readings of those garments, and preloaded concepts of taste and politics immediately interjected. Even with designers I sometimes enjoy, I find the paranoid overcoming me (Last week’s confirmation that Miuccuci Prada is the best thing to happen to Raf Simons in the last decade).

Was this the attitude I needed? Did I read the story of Visvim too loosely? Did I lack Sedgewick’s cold paranoia that all denim rips and stories cost extra? Was I not derisive enough of the concept of pre-bought distress? This seemed right, to close myself off after such a loss, to enfold myself in garment paranoia. I tried wearing the ripped pair frivolously, defiantly uncaring. The rip just got worse, equally defiant towards my halfhearted pivot. Paranoia didn’t last for me after all, particularly amidst a Ralph Lauren show celebrating old Los Angeles and the discovery of a well-worded 90s/00s Stussy tee adorned with Shakespeare to tug at my heartstrings.

So what to do with my heartbreak? If not paranoid reading, then perhaps a reparative reading, and with that repair. GQ writer Zach Baron writes, “Visvim, at its best, re-centers reality around its own peculiar values—it drapes you in magic.” In this vein, I must examine my pre-repaired denim and the values it can inspire as well as carry prepackaged. My Visvim may have broken from me, but how can I make it whole with a piece of myself, weave it back onto my skin and wear it proudly with the knowledge that like me it is impermanent and beautiful? How can I sway with the romance of this denim while staying grounded in the world of reality, not dizzied by the expectation of immortality? Clearly, immortality was never the point.

There is a Visvim dissertation on the Fluxus denim I own. It reads, Denim follows your life, it shows your life, it shows your character, and as you wear it more, the more you come to like it. To the extent that all clothing is like this, denim also has a way of becoming a part of us, both in body and self. Invincible denim would not be denim that follows you, and thus it would not be something that could be truly a part of you.

I refuse to hang up my romanticism for a world in which denim cannot surpirse me, inspire me, and beguile me. I want odd pleats and trompe l’oeil and stitched curiosities to challenge me and inspire me. As I consider my rip I also recognize that in becoming a part of me through wear I cannot succumb to some Duchampian conceit of object veneration through non use. To read reparatively here suggests not separating the garment from its ability to pierce and manipulate, but still recognizing the extent to which it is fallable and impermanant. A garment cannot be a static philosophy on the shelf, it must live with me. It must be allowed to break and be healed.

So.

Anyone have any advice on patching?

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