Waarom vieze spijkerbroeken ineens een modetrend zijn

What does “vieze spijkerbroek” mean in Dutch fashion?

Spijkerbroek is the Dutch everyday word for jeans, literally “nail-trousers,” after the rivets Levi Strauss patented in the 1870s. Almost every other European language took jeans straight from English; Dutch (and its cousin Afrikaans) coined its own. So when influencer Femke Louise’s pre-stained pair went viral, Dutch press called it a vieze spijkerbroek, “a dirty pair of jeans.”

The clip is a vox-pop on the dirty denim trend, with passers-by half-laughing at the idea of paying €1000 for jeans that look like you rolled in mud. Note the calque: English dirty denim sounds aspirational; literal Dutch vieze spijkerbroek sounds slightly judgmental, which is exactly the joke.