I make no secret of the fact that I often like to wear clothes that look like they got dragged through the desert by a camel (or through the Andes by a llama). I find inspiration for an outfit in a picture of a rusty old car rotting in the middle of a desert. While I have adopted a lighter/brighter color palette of late (think sun-bleached desert Southwest colors) and less distressing, I still like some things RATE, and will probably gravitate towards my rough& tumble stuff during cooler weather.

My dilemma is this: I've gained weight, and a favorite pair of jeans had to be donated to the rag bag. They were cream colored skinnies from Cato that didn't stay pristine cream colored for long. Instead of getting upset at the stains, I embraced them and hung the jeans on the clothesline for DH to shoot with his shotgun. He got a nice scatter pattern on the knee, and I loved those jeans. I especially loved them for work, where I can wind up with everything from blackberry juice to tomato chunks to mud from the side of the boss's pet pig on me. The random stains from work just added to the character of the jeans.

Sadly, I don't have a picture of the jeans in question, but I do have pictures of a scarf I made for myself that has some serious distressing going on (I had DH & friends use it for target practice) to give y'all an idea of what I'm talking about.

Then there's this sweatshirt that I distressed, really just ageing it by 10 years ago to make it less "normcore" and make me less likely to cry if I snagged it on something out here in the country (country life is hard on clothes).

I'm looking for ideas/inspiration for the replacement jeans. Obviously, I'd start off with non-premium denim because I can't bring myself to shoot holes in a pair of expensive jeans (I do still like normal things sometimes). The step hem idea is appealing, and I think I would like it in a raw edge. I'm just wondering if I want to go with a skinny, or a straight-leg, or some other cut. I also don't know that I want to go with another pair of white/cream denim because eventually they'll just look dingy underneath the RATE-ness. I'm not necessarily concerned with being on-trend with the wash or cut, just wondering if it's maybe time to break out of my skinny jeans rut. If so, doing it with a seriously distressed pair of jeans would be a good way to ease me into a new cut, since distressed/deconstructed is my comfort zone.

So, any suggestions about cut, wash, color, and even length are very welcome. I'm currently open to change, and this is my go-to place to get advice/wisdom regarding fashion and style changes. Thank you all (in advance) for your suggestions!