Some time ago, I forget when precisely – maybe 18 months, maybe 2 years – Don’s favourite pair of jeans started to show a bit of wear, so we decided to try an experiment to attempt to keep them alive and kicking (and wearable) for as long as possible.

Shockingly, these jeans were only a couple of years old at the point they started breaking down! This short podcast articles of interest: blue jeans is incredibly interesting listen on the history of jeans and denim – and how they are no longer quite what they were!

First up I patched the back pocket and re-stitched the pocket bags (the stitching on these was quite shoddy and his keys kept falling down his leg).

Then over the months as holes appeared, I progressively patched – until now almost the entire front has been reinforced.

But all that’s visible from the outside is a couple of stylish tears. I’m not really a fan of external patches, so my preferred method is big patches of quite sturdy denim on the inside with teensy hand stitches reinforcing the holes and the surrounds of the patch.

Of course what was once a lightweight pair of jeans now weighs rather a lot with all that reinforcing. Though Don claims they are still comfortable.

It will be interesting to see how much more life we can eke out of them, but I suspect the most recent patching will likely be the last.