How $200 Jeans Can Help Your Bottom Line

Editor's Note: Jon D. Markman writes a weekly column for CNBC on MSN Money that is republished here on TheStreet.com. He's also a regular contributor to RealMoney, TheStreet.com's subscription site. If you'd like to see all of Jon Markman's RealMoney commentary, click here for information about a free trial.

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A code that unlocks the secrets to sex, status and society is currently tattooed on the rear end of a 22-year-old woman near you. Not on her actual skin, mind you, but on her jeans.

For at a time when wages are stagnating and the economy is softening, women have decided -- for reasons known only to the fashion gods and their inner voices -- that it is time to splurge on denim. And so behold! The new era of the $200 pair of jeans.

Not just any jeans, mind you, but pants that have been ripped with screwdrivers, sanded with abrasives, washed with acid or beaten by stones. The more destroyed the denim, the better. So long as it has a fashion-forward loop of thread on the back pocket that signifies a chic and expensive brand, it doesn't matter that the pants are on their last legs. The tush code says that you are in the club -- and unafraid to spend two bills to put in your two cents.

These jeans are on display everywhere you look, if you know where to look -- and now you do. Check out the sports bar showing the NCAA tournament games near your office, or college campuses or any mall where moneyed kids congregate. According to Vera Van Ert, apparel analyst at brokerage Wedbush Morgan, high-fashion denim is the new "black pant." She means that women, who love the way soft new styles of Italian denim thread fit their gym-honed curves, are making once-lowly jeans a staple of their wardrobe.

Ask a girl why she decided to spend $200 or more per pair, though, and you get kind of a faraway look. Is it that most are made in the U.S., or have superior smoothness, or are cut specially to hide faults and accentuate the positives? Is it because some of the offerings are lovingly distressed -- even "destroyed," according to catalog descriptions -- by hand instead of by machine?

Few can offer a straight answer, which leads one to conclude that the urge to sashay into an elite circle hemmed with money is the untold answer.