Given that jeans have been a mainstay of fashion for decades now, you would think that we would all have perfected the art of ...

Sales are thriving in the uncanny valley of printed denim. By Jacob Gallagher Acne Studios, the Swedish fashion house, makes $800 jeans that look like something a roofer would wear to a rave.

Or rather, a pair of the best men's jeans, period. The five-pocket denim pant is an icon worn through the decades by prospectors, cowboys, rocker n' rollers and well-dressed guys everywhere.