There is a pair of jeans available in America that retails for, wait for it, $250,000! That seems incredible, considering the history of the world?s favourite garment. The originals were made for miners and then cowboys, as jeans were basically durable, long-lasting and didn?t require washing or ironing. Jeans have always been clothes for the working class. Levi?s, Lee and Wrangler churned out denim trousers that became an international clothing item worn by celebrities and ordinary folk all over the world. Faded, crushed, ripped, skin-tight or sagging, and now available in varying colours, it is the most democratic of clothing items and totally unisex. Inevitably, the designers stepped in and from a universally reasonable price point, they gave birth to the expensive jeans market. The blue-collar denim trousers became modern-day fashion and status symbols. Designer jeans gained popularity and represented high fashion with brands such as Seven for All Mankind, True Religion, APO Jeans, Chip and Pepper, Paper Denim & Cloth and many other brands costing $300 or more per pair.
Designers ranging from Armani, Versace, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren and DKNY, to name the most popular, got into the act with prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,500. The Guinness Book of Records listed a pair of Gucci Genius jeans featuring elaborate feathers, beads, rips and buttons as the most expensive off-the-rack jeans, which retailed at $3,134, and Forbes once showcased Escada?s Swarovski crystal-encrusted jeans that sold for $10,000. Levi Strauss, the original jeans makers, bid $46,532 to buy back a pair of its own brand of denim pants on the popular auction site eBay. However, the most expensive old jeans were an average pair of 501 jeans manufactured in the 1880s and purchased by a Japanese collector in 2005 for $60,000.
None of those prices, however, can even hold a candle to that commanded by Dussault Apparel?s Trashed Denim line of luxury jeans. These men?s jeans are handmade using a special process where they are washed 13 times, with dying and painting performed between each washing to add depth to the jeans. That?s not all. Each pair of Trashed Denim jeans is adorned with 16 one-carat rubies, 26 0.05-carat rubies, 8 0.05-carat diamonds and 1,080 gm of 18k white or rose gold. Dussault Apparel?s Trashed Denim jeans are priced at $250,000, the most expensive jeans in the world. They can be purchased only at two outlets, the Dussault store in Los Angeles and Kustom in New York City.