Earlier this month a friend of mine bought a jacket from buzzy Japanese brand ssstein. It’s made from European linen yarns woven into a herringbone in Bishu, Japan. From there, the garment undergoes “hand-applied distressing” and “various finishing processes” to create a “textured appearance,” as stated by several product pages. My friend, excitedly tracking the parcel as it shipped from taste-making Madrid boutique Sportivo to his home in Vancouver, promised to share his thoughts once it arrived.
A few days later, his message landed in my inbox: “Oh my god, I’ve no idea why they chose this, but the finishing on mine makes it look like I’ve committed a crime.” Apparently, his jacket just so happened to be splotched with irregular red marks that looked eerily like blood stains. The price? $500, exclusive of import duties. Mind you, that was on sale — this jacket would have cost him over $1,000 otherwise.
This adventure recalls the kind of unpredictability you usually expect of vintage pieces, especially the truly antique pieces, where not knowing what life they lived is part of the fun. Here, though, an attempt to reproduce that sense of serendipity resulted in a choice so strange it made the garment practically unwearable.
This kind of distressed luxury – sometimes mocked with derogatives like “poverty chic” – didn’t start with ssstein, of course. Nor is it confined to a single label. In fact, it doesn’t even stop at Enfants Riches Déprimés, Balenciaga, Gallery Department, or other streetwear-leaning labels known for pre-trashed garments. The “old dirty clothes” look is so ubiquitous it has completely taken over menswear, linking brands that would otherwise have nothing in common — from Valentino and Louis Vuitton to Auralee and Unlikely Dry Goods — and filling racks in stores as disparate as Dover Street Market and Walmart.
Once a radical idea, distressedness is now a high-end commodity. But how do you make new clothes look worn-out and lived-in, as if a lifetime of actual wear and tear shaped them? And when does that aged aesthetic tip into something cheap, gimmicky, or simply unwearable? Increasingly, designers look to expert vintage dealers for answers. Through their feeds, websites, stores, private collections, and consultations with fashion brands, these dealers have become a quiet force in fashion, defining a crucial element of how menswear feels right now.
They’re based around the world, from Japan to France and the U.S. to Korea, but they’re all after the same thing. Rather than flawless, mint-condition vintage items or worn-in Carhartt jackets and old-season Supreme hoodies, these dealers hunt for truly old garments that carry the marks of human life in whatever form it takes. This beat-up stuff is heavily faded, fraying, repaired, stained, and pockmarked with holes — in other words, as “real” as it gets.
“The appeal is that it already has a life in it,” says Sam Capener of SWIMMERS, an appointment-only vintage boutique in Salt Lake City that regularly sells out of genuinely worn sweaters and sun-faded jackets. “And that the visible markers of that — heavy wear, extreme fading, and other imperfections — are entirely honest and unforced.”
Kenta Kimura and Naofumi Noguchi, the duo behind Sinot and two of the foremost tastemakers in this niche, go one step further. Established in Tokyo in 2021, Sinot’s aim is to “redefine vintage clothes not as ‘old clothes’ but as ‘tangible records that have survived the times,’” as Kimura puts it. “I see every kind of damage as ‘proof of the past,’” he adds. “Just as holes, stains, and repairs are traces of everyday life, fabrics, seams, and buttons connect that life to a specific era.”
Kimura and Noguchi’s knack for tattered-yet-luxurious clothes hasn’t gone unnoticed. Sinot has gathered over 30k Instagram followers, and serious buzz fuels its occasional Paris pop-ups that showcase 1930s French corduroy hunting coats, 1940s U.S. Navy smocks, and 1960s Swedish motorcycle jackets in various stages of wear and tear.
What differentiates these genuinely worn-in vintage garments from pre-distressed pieces by contemporary brands? Kimura answers: “The point is that they literally cannot be made or manufactured. They’re the unintentional outcome of years and years of wear under specific, unrepeatable circumstances.”
Other vintage sellers take a different view. Tristan Ferguson, from LA-based Remnants, and Connor Gressitt, co-organizer of Distressed Fest and better known as Dumpster Diver, believe it’s possible to put old life into new clothes. But it takes time and money to actually pull it off. Ferguson and Gressitt regularly sell to the design teams of brands like Enfants Riches Déprimés and Acne Studios. “Whether it’s to reproduce wash, wear or repair, they need an authentic original to base their design on,” the two say. “And they’re willing to pay a premium for that.”
How much do their designer clients pay? The sellers decline to specify exact numbers. "I don't price-talk,” Gressitt says when pressed. “[I] want to keep the conversation on the garments themselves."
Sometimes, Ferguson and Gressitt are genuinely impressed by the quality of these new-old garments. “I know ERD is constantly in search of unique washes and wear patterns that they, as well as their customers, haven’t seen before. On a recent visit to their headquarters, I was able to touch and feel some of their garments and was struck by how close to the original they feel,” says Gressitt. Ferguson gives the example of Japanese label PROLETA RE ART. “The guy behind it creates one-of-one pieces that have been distressed, repaired, and faded. Honestly, they genuinely look like something that has been lived in for many years.”
All these sellers agree on one thing, though: nothing beats the authenticity of the original. Their customers seem to agree, as prices for particularly exquisite (read: extremely worn) vintage items now rival those of the high-end brands replicating them. The prices paid by designers seeking source material may be undisclosed but individuals making appointments at the Remnants showroom can expect to pay $350 for a destroyed thermal-lined hoodie from the 1960s. At Sinot, prices for heavily faded French coats, all available upon request, easily exceed $1,000. That’s about what my Vancouver friend would have paid for his intentionally, and oddly, distressed ssstein jacket. Such is the cost of pure, one-off happenstance. Only in Sinot’s case, the clothes don’t look like a crime scene.
