Of all the brands to have a lock on making a solid pair of pants, Acne Studios is up at the top. Lest we forget, the Swedish fashion brand began with a single product three decades ago: raw denim jeans with red top-stitching, limited to 100 pairs originally made for friends and family. It doesn’t take a fashion historian to see Acne has done pretty well since then, expanding into runway shows, a dedicated culture magazine, and dozens of retail stores.
But set aside its just-elevated-enough take on a bomber jacket, its Camero collapsed leather bags, or the flood of faded “Acne Studios STOCKHOLM 1996” graphic tees every influencer and performative male seems to have added to their closet in recent months, and it's the jeans from recent seasons that feel most exciting.
Acne has been experimenting with trompe-l’oeil for a minute, with the viral keychain-covered jeans from 2024 selling out even through multiple restocks. Since then, the brand has leaned further into the magic of the optical illusion. For its latest collection, that’s translated into a print of a knotted scarf and jewels “hanging off” the belt — a spiritual successor to its popular keychain print, yet a bit more deliciously kitsch in the vein of Dario Vitale’s sole Versace collection.
The offerings also include teddy-bear and ribbon print jeans, a trompe-l'oeil image of photocopied jeans on actual jeans (jeansmaxxing, if you will), and fake strips of tape on another pair. Even the “mended” fit, with its hand-applied stains and patches, feels refreshingly off-kilter: the contrasting repaired panels create a depth that lends itself to the almost organic shapes of the patches, like denim scabs (in the most complimentary way possible). Factor in a Hussein Chalayan capsule collection that mashes together light and dark washes like oil and water, and it's clear Acne is working at peak capacity in its denim department.
A brand built on jeans making good jeans shouldn’t feel groundbreaking, yet Acne’s great denim still feels overshadowed by far louder brands. That may be a symptom of its own identity; while something like the Glenn Martens era of deconstructed denim at Diesel sucked up all the oxygen for years, Acne tempers its freak by balancing it with a more subdued Scandinavian spirit. The prints may be odd, but the cut is as it's always been: classic and clean.
And yes, that even applies to its beloved line of pre-dirtied jeans — the range that still inspires waves of TikTok videos on how to replicate the effect with mud, clay, and coffee. Other brands may make jeans that look like they’ve been dragged behind a truck, but nobody inspires people to DIY quite like Acne.
Two years after striking gold with keychain jeans, what could’ve curdled into a cash grab or an uninspired rehash has turned into something closer to a new house signature. Acne knows you’re out there rubbing instant coffee into your jeans, so it feels like a natural next step to just skip the middleman (barista?) and print on the illusion of dirt, decoration, and patching. This sense of humor, paired with the cuts it built its name on, means nobody is quite doing denim like Acne right now.
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