Forget 10 years. Pre-ripped jeans, because that is what we are talking about, really — the kind of wear and tear that is artfully, or not so artfully, designed into denim, as opposed to the kind of wear and tear that happens over time — have been with us for more than three decades.

Their popularity has surged and waned, but ever since designers appropriated the signifiers of workwear, punk and hippie garb and offered them as fashion statements, these ripped-for-you jeans have never entirely gone away. They simply became known as “distressed denim.”

While you can argue the inauthenticity of buying your distress rather than creating it yourself, you can’t argue with designers’ ability to leverage the human desire for shortcuts, or fashion’s fundamental skill at absorbing the trappings of the underground and turning them into style.

“I don’t see ripped jeans going anywhere soon,” Benjamin Talley Smith said when I asked. Presumably he would know, since he is a denim specialist who has worked on the jeans lines of numerous brands, including Khaite, Walmart and Rag & Bone, and who haunts the flea markets of Los Angeles looking for old jeans with special lines of wear and tear for contemporary inspiration.

“If anything,” he said, “I feel the resurgence of more destroyed jeans in the premium and luxury market.”

As to why, it may have something to do with the current vogue for all things 1990s and 2000s, the original heyday of mass market distressed denim. It may also have something to do with the deterioration of dress codes in the post-lockdown world, the blurring of lines between work and play, and the way erstwhile weekend clothing can be dressed up just enough to go pretty much anywhere. Not to mention the discussion around sustainability and upcycling.

Then, too, it probably has something to do with the allure of a garment that seems to tell a story of a life well lived, and the universality of the language of denim.

Still, not all ripped jeans are created equal, and there are certain clear tells that reveal whether the distressing comes from a machine or could legitimately be attributed to actual wear.

“You can tell a good destruction pattern based on a few things,” Mr. Talley Smith said. “If the fill yarns” — yarns that go across the hole — “are partially broken, that is a sign of authentic damage. If you see blue fuzzy around the hole, it means the holes were made after the jeans were finished.”

Other giveaways per Mr. Talley Smith: “The holes are in natural wear locations like the knees, coin pocket, back pocket or just below the front pocket scoops,” which is good, or the rips are too even or too symmetrical, which is bad.

Indeed, in what may be a supreme example of fashion irony, the more distinctive the ripping, the more expensive the jeans. This can be because the jeans are being used as a meta-commentary on old ideas of status and consumption, as with Balenciaga. Or it can be because, in the drama and artistry of their shredding, the scarification of their weft, the ripped jeans have more in common with couture one-offs than, say, “Flashdance” (and come with the price tags to match).

See, for example, the work of Glenn Martens at Diesel, where the designer has turned upcycling into a kind of creative laboratory of lasering, plasticizing and otherwise rendering old denim practically unrecognizable. Or see the draped threads, patched with lace, sequins and other found materials of Who Decides War, the New York label founded by Ev Bravado and Tela D’Amore. Who Decides War has developed a cult following in part because it posits damage and destruction as a route to beauty and because the designers understand that denim may be the best way to convey that idea.

It is, they wrote in an email, “an American staple, and a blank canvas with limitless possibilities.” One that really does withstand the test of time.