I grew up in the 70's and 80's and back then if you had torn jeans you were too poor for a new pair or your mother couldn't sew. I noticed a trend around the 90's of young people wearing torn jeans but I never seem to see any of those now middle age people stepping out with this look just young people still. Is it around the time you realize your heroes wearing the same stuff are actually just stupid bums or is it something deeper?
Man we were poor as shit. One kid got the last one's hand-me-downs. If you got a hole in those jeans it was getting patched with a piece that was never quite the right color.
I remember having to iron on patches to the knees of snow pants I inherited from brother. I didn't get new clothing until I got a job and bought them with my own money.
Most clothing fads I've noticed either go away on their own, or get dropped in year 3 or 4 of Uni, when looking good for a career path seems like a better choice than looking good for your buds.
I have never bought designer jeans, let alone ones with holes. When I was a young punk I would buy cheap jeans and sew on patches to cover up the holes until the pants disintegrated.
I was young when hair metal and ripped jeans were big, it was actually kind of good because we always ripped our jeans doing stuff outdoors anyways. Later on I was a punk so we'd just sew patches over any holes until the jeans would literally disintegrate at which point we'd harvest the patches for future use.
I wouldn't pay for pre-ripped jeans, I can just imagine my mother's voice telling me "don't buy those, they're already ripped, poorly made".