Best Jeans Forever
I met Liz during an internship in 2003. She was from the west coast, but was ironically born in the same Pennsylvania hospital six months before me; a sure sign we were meant to be friends, I figured. I envied her brand of cool, raised in Northern California, then at college in Portland. Mostly, I envied the pair of Paper Denim & Cloth jeans she wore often with a white leather belt. Perfectly worn, a gorgeous navy blue that never looked too bright or too cheap. Those jeans, they were perfect. Later, I’d learn they were bought at a consignment store in Sacramento, where they must have hung begging to be freed from the scores of bad Gaps and Levis and no-name labels populating the shelf.
Liz and I were fast friends, and spent that New York City summer bar-hopping, eating, drinking, shopping. She came along when I bought my first pair of designer jeans, a pair of whiskered, boot-cut Sevens that survived bar dancing, sidewalk spills, my 21st birthday, and that one time we each drank a full fishbowl from Brother Jimmy’s uptown and threw up on the 6 train on the way home. But no way did they stand up to the Paper Denims I begged to borrow at least once a week, summer heat be damned.
After that summer, I flew to Portland and visited as much as possible, always gravitating toward The Jeans. I even bought my own white leather vintage belt to go with them. I wore them as often as I could; to the beach, out to dinner, anywhere, anytime Liz wasn’t wearing them. We wore them with heels and with flats; somehow both worked. They were starting to wear, with a hole in one knee and thinning threads on the other, but looked effortlessly faded and rugged. I was doing cartwheels on Oregon’s Cannon Beach when the right knee finally tore open, both of us cringing at the telltale ripping sound. But as it turned out, they still looked amazing. And once again, I bid goodbye to the jeans and flew home to Brooklyn.
In 2005, after a layoff from my magazine job and subsequent disheartening breakup, I needed some cheer. As if on cue, a package from Portland arrived, and as I tore into it, I saw the coveted Paper Denims with a note from Liz — she figured I needed them more than she did. That summer and fall, I wore those jeans at every opportunity. They were fraying and thin, but still gorgeous blue and the most comfortable thing I’d ever worn. I wore those jeans into the ground, hanging onto them as they literally turned to threads, finally retiring them when virtually no fabric remained to cover some critical areas.
Even though they were beyond repair, I saved those jeans for years. Sadly, they were lost when my father’s house — where I stored everything that wouldn’t fit into my tiny apartment — flooded two years ago. We tried to save them, but the flood water combined with the laundry detergent and washing machine cycle finally did them in.
Happily, the friendship from which they were a product remains — Liz is still one of my best friends, most recently standing up next to me at my wedding. Like those well-worn Papers, our friendship has at times thinned and faded, but still remains perfectly fitting in any circumstance, from breakups to marriages to wild nights out and age-appropriate nights in. Our friendship is just like those jeans: comfortable, gorgeous, and full of some of the best stories of our lives.
