Nothing guarantees internet outrage quite like a weird denim trend

The people had a point.

Apparently some people do want the kind of life where denim panties are acceptable because the style is sold out.

In any case, the janties belong to a genre that has become particularly pervasive in recent years: brands creating increasingly outrageous iterations of jeans and people on the internet, and the fashion thinkpiece beat, reacting accordingly.

There were the Topshop jeans with the entirely pointless “windows” on the knee. And the pre-soiled jeans from Distressed which cost nearly $600 to look like you’d been rolling around in the mud or as though you had the kind of hard scrabble, "life on the land" kind of job where at knock-off you feel as though you've done an honest day's work.

Vetements released a pair of jeans which you could unzip right down the, er, middle, and Gigi Hadid wore a pair of detachable jeans, also by Y/Project, which similarly flummoxed people.

The reactions to the jeans were interesting. Wacky trends will always rile the "call that fashion" armchair critics. But jeans, wardrobe staple that they are, inspire a particularly rabid response.

Perhaps it's because just about everybody has a pair. We understand them and so we don't want them messed with. Jeans are for scream-singing Bruce Springsteen in, and pairing with a smart blazer for casual Friday. They're the solution for when you have a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear, not for pushing for the envelope in.

This is evident in the top selling styles on The Iconic: Straight leg jeans such as the classic Levi's 501s are the most popular, followed by "mom jeans" and the perennial skinny leg fit, which still beats out more relaxed cuts such as the 'boyfriend' style.

The retailer says flares have become more popular as has, for the second time around, the acid washes last popular in the 80s. In denim, what goes around comes around.  Nicole Adolphe, head of style at The Iconic says high waisted denim is "the look of the season" but that we can expect to see more tailored styles and the denim boiler suit coming through.

Yet denim remains a constant source of inspiration for all kinds of fashion designers, too.

The late Alexander McQueen created a new silhouette with the “bumster,” the precursor for the low-rise jeans which still haunt us from the late 90s/early 00s and keep threatening to make a comeback.

There's Jean Paul Gaultier's embellished denim (and evening gowns), and UK brand Ashish picking up that glue-gun aesthetic. Japanese label Sacai does super cool patchwork denim and unusual silhouettes and Marques'Almeida specialises in raw edges and swooshing hemlines. Levi's, founded in 1873, continues to change and challenge the way it does things. 

Ultimately, there's nothing so challenging as reinventing something which is perfect already in its simplicity. It risks people asking: Why bother messing with something that isn't broken?

Yet, maybe denim needed this reimagining.

The denim market has seen a resurgence after a few years playing second fiddle to the activewear boom.

According to research by market research firm The NPD Group, denim saw a 9 per cent increase in sales in the year ending July 2018.

Meanwhile recent innovations in denim, like made-to-measure denim, "performance" denim (for, say, the MAMIL who can't abide by bicycle shorts), the use of sustainable materials, and even 3D printed denim, show that, when it comes to rethinking how we've always done things, jeans and denim make for a fertile medium.

So do crazy jeans trends deserve such an internet pile-on? Maybe. Some of them are downright terrible. But they serve to remind us that, just because something is familiar, doesn't mean it oughtn't be challenged.

Though janties, well, that might be a challenge too far.