How to Make Your Favorite Pair of Jeans Last Forever

You know how we’re not supposed to wash our hair every day? Well, good news, according to Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh, you shouldn’t wash your jeans…ever!

Okay, not NEVER, but he did recently say he has yet to wash a pair of dark jeans he’s owned for a year. Now he’s not suggesting not washing them at ALL. He just advises people to keep them out of a washing machine and just spot wash them, “with a sponge or toothbrush and a bit of detergent, then air drying,” according to CNN. Now I definitely don’t want to over-wash my jeans because they definitely get worn in different ways, etc. So I understand this advice. But since I mostly wear jeans with stretch in them and not just regular denim, I probably won’t follow this advice.

So it made me think of other ways you could save jeans forever. Jeans have always been an important part of my life, of course, and I even recall worrying in high school about what I was going to do when flared jeans went out of style. (Don’t worry, I figured it out.) So here are some tips to keep your jeans forever:

1. Just Keep Them!

I was a theater kid in high school and so had a whole outfit that was just Set Painting Day Clothes. A grubby shirt and a pair of jeans I let get covered in paint. And then I purposely covered them in paint, and then my high school boyfriend drew a picture of me in them, ON them, etc. They’re a great memento of my time in high school theater and I have them tucked away to one day show my kids and be like, “see, mommy was young once too!” (Or whatever you say to your kids about your mementos.

2. Turn Them Into a Purse!

Speaking of Levi’s, a pair of my mom’s jeans from probably the early ’70s, I’m guessing, was turned into this cute purse!

She kept it for a while and I eventually took it from her as a kid. Here I am wearing it in some kind of spy outfit, I’m not sure.

The point is they were jeans my mom had, and turned into a purse that now I have and can hopefully one day to give to my daughter!

3. Turn Them Into Shorts or a Skirt!

One of my favorite things is the ‘ol “whoops, I messed up my jeans but I’m sure I can cut them into shorts!” My favorite pair of cutoffs is a really old pair of jeans I have that I still wear.

I even just recently got a weird stain on a pair of jeans, cut them off, added some extra holes and have a new pair of shorts. Brilliant.

This is not new information, there are TONS of great tutorials to DIY a pair of shorts and really make them your own.

4. Blue Jean Crafts Galore!

Check out this Pinterest board of approximately a million crafts you could turn your old jeans into!

Amazing! There are wallets, and wall hangings and using the pocket as a magnet for the fridge and quilts and just about everything!

What’s your favorite way to upcycle your old jeans?