Jean Shop

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The jeans bar in Barneys Co-op still has the advantage in breadth of brands, but connoisseurs who shop for reasons beyond convenience are coming here for their denim. The 1,800-square-foot shop next to Stella McCartney is decorated in Early Redneck, with unfinished wood shelves and racks of leather jackets, but the yokel stops there. There are only a few styles available to men or women: a classic straight cut and a relaxed fit, cut from premium Japanese denim in deep indigo. But then you choose various treatments and finishing techniques to create your unique, singular distress pattern. A little bit of fade around the knees? A full-on blast, complete with hanging threads and busted seams? You choose. Either way, a finished pair takes about a week, and costs between $260 and $620. But hey, that’s not much more than you’d pay for something everyone else has.

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