Artificially Flavored Fashion: Neon Destroyed Denim Shorts

So I was browsing the clearance department of my local Urban Outfitters and I saw these great pinkish/purple denim destroyed high waisted shorts, similar to these, which are also pictured below.

I tried them on and they fit great other than the fact that they had been cut booty short. This is completely unnecessary and annoying. I realized that these shorts were all different and they have obviously been thrifted and altered to bump up the price. Well, hey, I can do that too. Thus began my journey to creating my own colorful array of destroyed high waisted denim.

Click to enlarge!

I did my usual thing of perusing thrift stores and trying on denim shorts, capris and jeans to find some that fit perfectly.

This purple pair was the first I made, in attempt to replicate the ones I had seen at Urban Outfitters. The jean shorts started out a relatively dark blue. I bought Tulip fabric dye in pink. The pink was perfect because it turned the blue parts purple and gave the lighter frayed bits a pinkish tint.

I was super excited about the success of my first pair so I decided to make more! I wanted a different pair to wear each day of this year's Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. I think I had dwindled their supply of mom shorts at the thrift store so I had to go to a few more places. I ended up trying on jeans and capris as well as shorts. This here turquoise pair below were originally full length mom jeans. I tried them on and they seemed to fit snug enough so as to not flare out strange at my thigh. I measured and cut them appropriately.

I acid washed this pair and the yellow/green pair a bit before I dyed them. I put Clorox Bleach in a spray bottle and just went to town on the shorts. Do this outside and make sure the wind is blowing away from you because I got a good amount of bleach in the face....and it burned. It was quite the process because I laundered them afterwords, not knowing if the bleach would affect the dye. Well I experimented with my final red pair and the bleach doesn't seem to affect the dye at all so I think it's possible to avoid the in between step of laundering. I dyed these with Tulip turquoise.

This greenish pair began as capris; I was drawn to them because of their uniquely large, square front pockets. They started out a very light blue denim color and I did a little dye mixing with these; majority Tulip lime and a couple cupfuls of the turquoise to darken.

I made this last, red pair in order to show my best friend the process and help her make some as well. Again I acid washed these (a bit too much I think) and then used the Tulip dye in red. I'm thinking the next step with these is to add a row of studs on one of the front panels. Studding is a pain in the ass though, which is why it has yet to be done.

Here they are below, in all their glory. For the price of one pair of Urban Outfitters shorts (on sale, even), I made four pairs! It's great because you cut them yourself and color them yourself, you know they will fit how you like and you can play around with bright colors.