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Seinfeld’s classic stonewashed jeans are back, but this time in more fashionable washes and cuts.

At the Toronto denim emporium dutil., hundreds of pairs of rolled-up vintage jeans are stuffed above the shelves as decoration. Ten shades lighter than most of the fresh twill on sale below, classic stonewash jeans like these have had plenty of iconic moments, from the Ramones to Ralph Lauren, Nirvana to Calvin Klein. But that was then. The latest famous legs the hue has landed on belonged to Barack Obama, who was given a thumbs down for wearing his in the same (unfortunate) high-waisted fit as the jeans banished to retail propping at dutil.

"There are some interesting pairs up there, to put it democratically," says the store's manager, Kaitlin Churcher.

Despite its less than hip associations, this flat, faded wash has started to pepper the stacks of deep indigo lining the shop's walls. Stonewashing has returned, but not in a carbon copy of its last big appearance a few decades ago. With a host of brands reviving the colour in trim, tailored fits, these aren't in any way baggy, saggy "dad jeans." APC, a cult favourite for its stiff, raw selvedge, has put out a pair worthy of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. album cover, but with a considerably lower rise and more tapered leg than the singer's immortalized pair. Saint Laurent, one of the most sought-after luxury brands today, cut a pair so slick that few fathers would attempt to fit into them. The Swedish label Acne, meanwhile, is selling a skinny jean in a colour called "Eighties Blue," while Michael Bastian and Bally have joined in with trim-but-wearable options. And New York designer Patrik Ervell's throwback denim is tapered to millennial standards.

"When I made them, they didn't really exist. Now there are several companies that do that exact wash and cut," says Ervell, who introduced stonewashing to his namesake line with his first foray into jeans four years ago. "They're so popular we can't keep them in stock."

The men's-wear designer thought light stonewashing looked "pure" next to faux-distressed denim. But after hunting unsuccessfully for a flattering fit, he decided to make his own version.

"This Seinfeld wash had somehow disappeared," says Ervell. "Or, if it did exist, it existed in really gross sort of cuts that you wouldn't actually want to wear. To me, it was like you were taking that wash that had kind of gone into exile and died out and using it again in the kind of silhouette you would want. People sometimes throw out the term normcore – I guess you could say it has an element of that."

Google "normcore" and the cast of Friends, the late Steve Jobs and Mitt Romney pop up, all wearing the same light, whiskerless denim. Although normcore borders on nineties fetishism, it's not a costume party and it certainly isn't defined by a lack of effort. It's about consciously opting for blandness as a statement. Enter: stonewash jeans.

"If you actually are 'normal' and you're dressing 'normally,' it doesn't work," Ervell says of his purposefully plain denim. "The key to wearing those jeans is to not actually be that dad [whom] those jeans are referencing."

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