How you can make luxury fashion at home
The day did not pan out how I had expected. Writhing around on the ground in St James’s Park trying to smear as much mud as possible on to a pair of jeans might be a worthwhile activity for a young child but, as I kept telling myself, this was for a higher cause.
There was much indignation online yesterday at the £330 jeans made by luxury demin brand PRPS that come caked in faux-mud as part of a complex fashion statement.
The challenge was simple: to find out whether it was possible to recreate these high-fashion items for one hundredth of the price and test the reactions of the public and renowned London establishments to ultra-distressed demin.
A Trinity Hospice charity shop gets me off to a good start. For £3.30 I purchase a snug pair of jeans that are fresh, clean and smear-free.
In the park it takes me just five minutes to achieve the “heavily distressed” look. A dog comes to help me at one point. When a man approaches to ask what’s going on and I explain, he looks aghast. “Horrible,” is his verdict. “I would never spend that kind of money on a pair of jeans – even if they were clean.”
Walking along London’s pavements, my apparel is largely ignored apart from a runner who looks at me as though I might have the plague and veers to the other side of the road.
The jeans’ first real test comes at The Rubens at the Palace, a lavish hotel close to Buckingham Palace. Here a doorman waves me in, offering his long coat to hide my soiled lower half. At reception I’m told that clothing policy has long been thrown out of the window. “We don’t have one,” says the receptionist. “We welcome people off flights in all sorts of outfits – hoodies, tracksuits, ripped jeans, it doesn’t matter.” So far, so unfazed.
Next up is The Goring hotel, a favourite haunt of the Queen, which was awarded a Royal Warrant for Hospitality services in 2013.
I’m allowed past the threshold but things hot up in the bar area when a member of staff ums and aahs before asking whether I have another pair of trousers to change into. His manager arrives, assesses the situation then waves me through.
But on the whole, no one is batting an eyelid. Blame it on athleisure, blame it on slipping standards – just don’t shell out £330 when you can achieve the same look by rolling around in your back garden.