How To: Rip Off Ripped Leggings

Think about it: If the same thing were In season after season, what excuse would we have to buy new crap?

Nada, hence the expiration dates inherent in trends.

Leggings are an anomaly in this capacity: They hit the scene back in 2006, and haven’t left since. Why’d they get to stick around? Did Fashion exempt them from the rule? Nope – that was us. Shockingly enough, the first monetary priority in a recession isn’t tossing last season’s stuff so you can buy more crap. We said Leggings got to stay, Fashion said okay, and it then bestowed on us newer, edgier versions of the ubiquitous garment.

Cotton leggings? Eew, grossness. Latex leggings? So last spring. Denim leggings? So Now. Ripped Leggings? Like, totally, cutting edge! (Pun intended, har har).

If you heart The Eighties as much as I do, you’re obvs considering buying a pair in the last style mentioned.

EFF THAT.

Here’s how to rock the ripped version sans buying another pair.

Ingredients
-Fiskars Fingertip Craft Knife (that’s my fancy-schmancy version of an Xacto Knife, neither should run you more than ten bucks).

-Photo of ripped leggings you intend to rip off (for inspiration purposes).

-Old pair of solid-colored leggings (mine were of the American Apparel Nylon Tricot High-Waist ilk, purchased last winter. If you’re not obsessed with leggings to the point of paying an uber-irritating $42 per pair, go cheaper. If you’re a bonafide leggings enthusiast, you (a) already own a pair of these and (b) fully intend on buying more this fall anyway, as they’re still less of a rip off than their trendier counterparts).

Step 1: Try leggings on, and determine how high on the leg you want your cuts. If you’ve been wearing short skirts sans tights all summer, go higher; if you’re just not that into bearing your upper thighs, start an inch or so above the knee. Mark your line with a pin or a piece of chalk or a pen or whatever.

Step 2: Using either duct-tape or the palm of your non-cutting hand as leverage, secure one leg of the legging on a hard, flat, indestructible surface (read: wooden cutting board). With your tool of choice, make a small horizontal test cut – NO MORE than an INCH AND A HALF in width – at the foot end of the leg. This exercise will illuminate the power of the Xacto knife, as your cut will probs slice through the front and back of the material to the surface you’re working on. This is okay, as long as you keep your cuts short. If your slice spans the full width of the legging, you risk hacking off the material entirely and having nothing to show for your DIY dalliance as a result. I’m just saying.


Step 3 : Using your inspirational photo as a guide, cut and dice your leggings to your heart’s content.

The point isn’t to reproduce what you see, so don’t flip out if what you end up with isn’t a carbon copy – there’s something to be said for originality. We just want to end up with ripped leggings similar in appearance to those currently retailing for an astronomically offensive $125.

Slice cheap, look trendy. BAH!