Discovered in a mineshaft, a pair of Levi’s jeans from the 1880s recently sold at auction in New Mexico for $78,000. No need to grab your pickaxe to find the perfect vintage jeans, though. Increasingly, designers are working with vintage or deadstock (previously unsold) denim to avoid the water waste and pitfalls of pesticides involved in making fabric from scratch.
“We are constantly looking for brands that upcycle vintage denim,” Grace Neal explains. EB Denim, for one, specialises in recycled denim jeans. Based in L.A., the EB team re-stitches vintage pairs into modern cuts and clever spliced-together designs. French designer and LVMH Prize winner Marine Serre is another name to know in the world of upcycled denim. Marine uses deadstock to create her jackets, jeans and skirts, firing lasers at them to add her signature moon motif. Grace tells us there’s more to come, too: “We have a couple of new brands coming for SS23, which I am really excited about, so watch this space!”