Back in the 1800s people broke in their jeans the honest way–tearing them on barbed wire fences while rustling cattle. Then one day a woman who worried about sending her kid out with “dirty dingy underwear” added rocks instead of softener to the wash. Thus, stone-washed jeans were born … or at any rate that’s how I imagine the idea was born. The only problem with this method of stone washing was that you had to hire people to pick pebbles out of the pockets.