Today’s ‘Slice of the Ridiculous’
Man. I’m pi$$ed. Also baffled and bemused. I had to retire a well loved, well worn pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans last weekend. They were the worn out, pale blue type, already ratty as I paid for them. So when ~ whether it was age or a tad more AVDP then their geriatric state could handle ~ the material split along the rear pocket seam, I thought no harm, no foul. They’d served me well.
Having such an esteemed opinion of said jeans, I dug through them for tags one last time, thinking to get a style number and reduce fruitless hours of trying on different pairs. I found such a tag, along with another I’d never noticed these past three years. One I would never in a million years have associated with denim: especially moderately priced denim. All in caps, mind you. An amazing tag, all things considered, for a pair of BLUE JEANS.
LINE DRY IN SHADE DO NOT TUMBLE DRY
WTF is that? I should have maybe spelled it BLEU jeans?
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
December 28, 2005 11:08 am
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Okay, “line dry” I can see. I had a roommate who, back in the 80s, NEVER dried her jeans in the dryer because she said it made them fade. So I was subjected to wet jeans on the backs of our dining rooms chairs every damn day. So I know that some people don’t dry their jeans, crazy as that sounds.
But “in the shade”? What is that? That’s just freaky.
Oh, you see, this is a point upon which I can be of assistance. As a world-class capitalist consumer piglet and fashionista, I can definitively say that if you wish to keep the BLEU jeans for a long, long time do the following:
1. wash on delicate in cold water INSIDE OUT
2. line dry… you can give them a little kick start in the dryer, but fer the love of the God of Your Choice, DO NOT cook them
3. the shade part is fine, but the washing INSIDE OUT in cold water prevents most of the fading
Hence, the reason I have had most of mine for 10+ years.
Ich bin Gob-schmacked.
I will admit to cold water and hang drying those very first, mid-70’s pairs of Jordache and Guess jeans, simply because a $3.50/hr minimum wage job then made for staggeringly FEW pairs of $50 jeans. Those suckers had to last me. But now, with a $45 pair being probably the low end of decent enough quality, never in my wildest dreams did I even think to go LOOKING for a care tag, less mind what it would say.
(Plus ‘shade’ is hard to come by in a Florida housing development.)
The sun also fades things nicely – if you want your whites to be really white, hanging them in the sun helps a lot.
So dry them in the shade – and leave them inside out while drying them. They’ll fade enough while you are wearing them.
I feel great sympathy as my last pair of Tommy jeans are now in the can’t wear in public pile. But as much as I loved the fit, I cannot buy another pair of them after watching just one episode of the MTV show “Rich Girls” which starred his daughter. I refuse to give that man another dime help support her.
Oh, I am with you on the anti-Ali Hilfiger. She is about twenty kinds of Axis I & Axis II diagnoses in the DSM-IV… and only age 19. They’d better put more money away for therapy for that kid.
Eeek.