When your jeans reach that stage, post them on Ebay and get more than your money back. Some kid will think they are perfect
And back to the underwires, they definitely were designed by some Teutonic sado-masochist. And people used to complain about whalebone? I read a long article somewhere about how women's clothing, expecially bras, reflect the degree of repression extant in society. It seems that when Republicans are in power, women's mores are repressed and slammed into neat and useful little boxes while they have clothing that confines the body while still making them look like whores. (The first example that comes to mind is the pointy bras of the 50's under stretched-out sweaters which covered from chin to waist.) On the opposite end of the spectrum was the comfort movement of the 70's, which supposedly had the garment industry in a panic because the women wore what felt comfortable, in whatever length that suited them, and skipped the bras and stockings even at work. Wish I could remember where I saw that article, I'd like to write that magazine and point out that the hellish underwire bra became almost universal in the over-the-top economy of the 90's, with Democrats in office