Longing for Authenticity, Even If Its Fake

The older I get, the more I am turning into my father.

You see, the world makes less sense to me every day. My fellow man puzzles me more every day.

I cite exhibit A: crappy stone walls. I know a woman who recently paid $10,000 to have a stone retaining wall built along her driveway.

Now I used to be a stonemason - I rebuilt close to 200 such walls during my college years - and I was shocked to learn that hers was a NEW wall. It was buckling and full of gaps. Not one stone was properly cut or faced.

It's the latest craze, she told me - walls that have an old, authentic look. This is because people suddenly want the outside of their homes to look as "distressed" as the inside.

"Distressed furniture" is the latest trend in interior design. People are buying brand new tables and dressers, bringing them into their garages, kicking and scratching them, then covering them in a lumpy, flaky paint.

I called my sister, an interior designer, to learn more about this peculiar activity. She said people want the antique look, but because real antiques are hard to come by, then the next best thing is to buy something new and make it look scuffed and tired and worn.

This causes my father to rise up in me as I say, "What the…"

But nothing is more puzzling than our next item of distress: distressed jeans. That's right, there is actually a product the fashionistas refer to as "distressed jeans." These are jeans with tears and gaping holes that sell for upwards of $600 a pair.

Even in Pittsburgh, land of common sense people, a lousy pair of trendy jeans run upwards of $200. I talked with the owner of an upscale jeans store and she told me the jeans with holes in them aren't as popular as the ones with paint splattered all over them.

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