DIY | How To Rip Stretch Skinny Jeans

With a lovely new pair of skinnes to try out, I was keen to give the prim dark denim a bit of a more rock n’ roll look. Basically I’m physically incapable of wearing non-distressed jeans at the moment! Anyway…

I wanted to do it properly and checked out a couple of online tutorials first (like this incredible one by Free People, which involves a sanding block, stanley knife and two full washes!). The resounding advice seemed to be always distress non-stretch lighter denim, not the dark stretchy kind. That was a bit annoying. So I thought I’d give it a go myself and prove l’internet wrong!

Turns out it’s super simple and you can get very nice results with any washing machine involved. Thank goodness, as I only had half an hour before we were due to go out for lunch (‘Yes, darling, I’ll only be a few more minutes!” Ahem) and I wanted to wear them! I kept things very restrained as I didn’t want to mess it up and also I figure the holes will grow with time and washing.

So to begin, all you need is a pair of sharp sewing scissors and something to mark your jeans with, I used some chalk…

I made two marks, both a little above my kneecap – one a little to the right towards the seam and one on the other leg.

And snip! First a cut two holes about an inch and a half on the mark closer to the seam and then about two inches on the other. I really wanted to keep these small as this was a trial one, but I reckon you can go bigger with no disasters!

Now these is my soon-to-be-patented technique – STRETCH & FRAY both edges of the cuts using your thumbnail. Use one hand to pull the fabric taught and the other to ‘stretch n’ fray. I did this quite a few times over to get the amount of fraying I wanted…