On talking about old clothing being less durable \u2013 that was the significance of the \u201cdirty hippies\u201d adopting bluejeans as a signifier - denim, which was originally used like canvas for tarps and tents, made for durable clothing that could go relatively long without mending or cleaning, which meant that traditionally it was for low-class hayseeds and manual laborers (consider the archetypal farmer\u2019s denim overalls)
Of course at the time you bought them stiff as a board and had to wash them a few times to even fit into them, then your body heat and moisture would sort of adapt them to you as you wore them
Which, as jeans became popular, became the basis for style - \u201870s girls putting them on in the bath so they\u2019d dry skintight to their ass. And then the \u201cdesigner jeans\u201d boom of the \u201880s, a lot of which was about pretreatments \u2013 stonewashing, acid washing \u2013 that softened the denim enough to allow for particular style.
Which weakened the denim, leading into to the \u201880s-\u201890s style of jeans ripped at the knee like slashed doublets