How To Distress Jean Shorts In 6 Easy Steps? – (2023 Guide)
Cut off shorts are a summer staple. They seem to be everywhere in retail stores, on TV or on your favourite fans. You can turn your old jeans into a pair of cute destroyed shorts in just a few minutes by using a shape pair of scissors able to easily cut through denim and then you’ll obtain a cut-off pair of shorts without spending a penny. If you want to avoid using scissors, you can use a pair of tweezers or an old razer.
Using these very minimal materials allow you to easily distress jean shorts and customize them according to your needs.
If you want short shorts, you can create them yourself and if you want long shorts, you can also re-invent them yourself. It really depends on your goal and personal style.
With store-bought high-waisted destroyed denim shorts, you are limited to the styles you find there. However, When you cut up your jean shorts alone, you have a wider style selection. You can create them from any pair of denim jeans without spending a penny.
However, creating your own cut off shorts requires a bit of work. So keep reading our article to know how to distress jean shorts?.
How do You Distress Jean Shorts?
The first step is choosing your beginning fabric. There are two basic options for creating cut off shorts.
You can grab a pair of your old jeans to turn them into shorts or purchase denim pants from the thrift store and give them a new life. Measure how long you want them to reach from your waist to where you want them to hit
- For Bermuda Shorts, you cut them off just above the knee.
- For Short Shorts, you cut them off one to two inches below the bottom line of your buttocks.
- For Chino Shorts, you can cut to about mid-thigh.
- You can turn a pair of denim jeans into pedal pushers or culottes by cutting off about six to seven inches of fabric It all depends on your goal and personal style
The Hem Style
A good starting point is to make your first decision whether do you want your frayed edge cut to show? or do you want to roll the Jeans up to create a Hem?
You can fold them under and hem them to create a Bermuda short look or you can create a one-inch fold on the outside then fold it a second time so none of the frays show, otherwise, you’ll have shorts with the cut off look.
STEP1: Begin Cutting Your Jeans
1/ Find an Old Pair of Jeans
The easiest way to create cut off shorts without spending too much money is to use an old pair of jeans that you don’t normally wear anymore and instead of throwing them away, you can give them a new life by cutting them and reusing them as cut-offs.
If you’re not willing to cut one of your old jeans as you feel bad about cutting up, you can purchase denim pants from the thrift store or from discount clothing shops and turn them into cute cutoff shorts
And if you have an intimate friend of yours who is the same size as you and she may have jeans she doesn’t use you may consider asking her to donate them.
2/ Cut Your Jeans Using Existing Shorts As a Template
To create cut off shorts, you’ll start with determining the length. It’s best to use an existing pair of shorts as a template. Straighten out your jean legs and place the shorts over top. This will give you a visual template of how length to cut your shorts.
After marking the length, try to follow these instructions. Cut an inch below the shorts template mark to give you enough material to make your frays and slits with.
- Cut your jeans with the side seam facing you.
- Be careful, you should pay attention to the jeans’ pockets otherwise you cut them up.
- You can use garment chalk to help trace your cutting line properly and avoid any mistakes.
3/ Fold Your Jeans in Half and Cut The Other Leg Equally
You can use the shorts template for one leg. After that mark the length where you would like your cuts to be, using a garment chalk. Then fold the jeans over in half and use the cut leg as a template for the uncut leg. This helps ensure that your legs are both the same length.
4/ Make Chalk Marks Where You Want Slits To Be
This is the key to a great-looking pair of cut off shorts. Most tutorials suggest planning out your cuts on your denim shorts using a piece of garment chalk. before confirming your decisions with scissors or a knife, By this way, it will give you time to think before you take the final plunge and hence avoid any mistakes:
STEP2: Create Worn Areas
Before creating worn areas, you should decide where you want your worn-out holes to be
Then place a magazine in between the pant leg of the shorts (this will make sure any cuts you make are on one side)
After that make chalk marks where you want slits to be, if you have already marked them, take scissors and cut into the fabric.
Slits can be as abundant as you would like them to be start by cutting a series of small slits about a centimeter or two apart. The more slits you cut out and the longer you make them will dictate how large the worn-out hole’ll be.
You’ll notice that within the weave of the denim short itself, there are vertical blue threads as well as horizontal white threads. Between the cuts or the slits that you have already created, use your tweezers to grab a vertical blue thread and gently pull it out
Finally, remove all of the vertical blue threads within the cuts you have made to reveal only the horizontal white threads. Be patient with this process, it does seem a little tedious at first. But with some patience, you’ll succeed in leaving a perfectly distressed hole in your shorts.
All what you have to do now is to repeat the same process, with the same patience until you have created as many holes as you want
STEP3: Distress The Pockets
In order to achieve a more authentic worn-in look, it’s advisable to distress the pockets of your high waisted denim shorts.
The process isn’t hard to do, on the contrary, it’s very easy just cut up the very top of the front pockets to reveal or show the threads, then Drag your old razor against the threads to create a subtle fray – After that and as a final step use your tweezers to pull out extra threads if you really want a more dramatic fray
STEP4: Don’t Forget The Backside
We can repeat the same process that we have done for the Shorts’ front pockets to distress the pockets of the Backside by this way, you achieve a more attractive worn-in look.
STEP5: Fray The Legs of The Shorts
Now, it’s time to drag your old razor along the cut edges of your shorts much like you did for distressing the pockets.
STEP6: Throw Your Shorts in The Washer and Dryer on Low
It’s up to you, to go for this last step or not but anyway throwing your shorts in the washing machine and drying it into the dryer on low, will give your new shorts a more destroyed look, it can also help remove the marks you made and any extra threads and dirt accumulated throughout the process.
