She Hopes Bullet-Riddled Jeans Hit Bull’s-Eye

Every week or so, Patty Ludwin lugs a friend’s rifle out to the back yard, casually aims at a pile of jeans on the ground, then fires once, twice, so many times she loses count.

She’s shooting for success, high-caliber style.

“It’s putting bullets to a good use, rather than going around killing people with them,” the fashion designer said, blasting holes into a pair of blue jeans spread on a white sheet.

The 33-year-old entrepreneur sells her bullet-riddled Calamity Jeans for $45 a pair. Her trademark is a leather bull’s-eye stitched to the back right pocket and a .357 Magnum cartridge that dangles from the patch.

Bullet Jewelry

She also creates Calamity Jewels: earrings, necklaces, belts, boot bracelets, key chains and just about anything else she can make with dull lead bullets and the shinier brass and nickel casings.

The pieces range in price from $4 to $65.

“I like wearing bullets,” she explained, her bullet earrings glistening in the afternoon sun. “I always say that because people ask: ‘Don’t you think it’s kind of violent to wear bullets?’ ”

Her jewelry has triggered so much interest at specialty stories like the B & D Country Closet in Wahiawa, Hawaii, that store owners Bill and Dale White can’t wait to begin stocking her clothing line.

“It’s real original,” White, 42, said. “You can’t find it anywhere else.”

Patrons of Pittsburgh’s trendy J. DeStefino Cosmetique also are clamoring for what Ludwin likes to call the “loaded” look.

“People come in and ask to see it. And they bring other people back,” said Debbie Bragle, 34, buyer and manager of the beauty salon and boutique.

“You couldn’t wear it (the jewelry) with a business suit or a nice dress. That would be kind of strange,” Bragle said. “But with the right outfit, it’s great.”

There are those who wouldn’t be caught dead in the stuff--figuratively speaking, of course.

‘I Think It’s Sick’

“I wish I were there. I’d picket her. I think it’s sick. I honestly think it’s sick,” said Mr. Blackwell, a Los Angeles fashion designer and creator of the annual 10 Worst Dressed List.

Still, the acerbic arbiter of haute couture isn’t surprised by the appeal.

“There’s a certain amount of fashion madness that will be bought,” he said. “If Seventh Avenue would come out with greasy paper bags, you’d have every woman (in Manhattan) wearing a greasy paper bag.”

In a townhouse in a quiet, woodsy complex 350 miles from New York and 2,100 miles from Los Angeles, Ludwin is doing her darndest to break into the fickle and often fleeting fashion market.

She took up the cause in fall, 1986, after a friend invited her over for a little target practice.

The target was jeans belonging to the friend’s boyfriend.

“She said he was cheating on her and she was going to take his favorite pair of blue jeans and shoot holes in them,” Ludwin recalled, laughing.

Boyfriend Liked Them

Afterward, when the women pulled the tattered trousers down from the tree, Ludwin liked what she saw. So did the boyfriend.

“I said: ‘I think this would be a really good idea to market these,’ ” she said.

The first step was to stock up on bullets.

“I had to go to these gun shops and these guys looked at me like I was a space alien,” she said. “I’d say: ‘Do you have anything in silver?’ And they’re like: ‘What? What do you mean, silver?’

“I was looking at them appearance-wise. They were looking at them as functional.”

Once she got the ammunition home, Ludwin carefully pried open the .22-caliber cartridges and dumped out the gunpowder. She then faced a dilemma: how to detonate the primer in the bottom of the casing that explodes and ignites the gunpowder.

Being rather gun-shy, she fried the casings.

“I covered it (the skillet), then I ran because I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said.

It was “like popcorn,” she said, and it worked.

Forged Into Jewelry

For months, Ludwin dutifully fried the casings, forging them with bullets into jewelry. She eventually learned that she could achieve the same result by simply spraying the primers with a rust-preventive oil.

She peddled her wares from store to store and at craft shows. The jewelry eventually made its way into shops around the country.

Buoyed by her success, Ludwin borrowed a friend’s .22-caliber rifle and branched into jeans last year, using her back yard or occasionally a friend’s farm as her shooting range.

Neighbors have yet to complain about the noise or incongruous sight, Ludwin said.