"I work hard so that my teenage daughter can have holes in all her clothes", writes Adam Gopnik.

He reflects on the greater significance of designer holes in jeans...and why it's a trend to be celebrated.

"I know what you are asking", Gopnik says. "How can you be rattling on about torn jeans...when our world, by your own account, may be coming to an end?" !

"Liberty large is what we fight for, but the little liberties of life - and the arbitrariness of fashion is one of life's most engaging little liberties - are part of the way we recognize that the larger liberty exists".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.