Denim cutoffs, created by cutting the legs off jeans to create shorts, became a summer staple of the counterculture in the mid-1960s. The DIY garment, often frayed and faded, symbolized the casual, anti-consumerist ethos of the hippie movement and the rejection of conventional fashion norms. Worn by men and women alike, cutoffs became a symbol of the free-spirited, communal lifestyle associated with the era.

The denim cutoff, as a symbol of the counterculture's rejection of materialism, appeared in the poetry of the 1960s and 1970s as a marker of authenticity and freedom. The garment's DIY nature, created by cutting and fraying, resonated with the experimental, anti-formalist tendencies of the poetry of the period, from the Beats to the New York School. The cutoff also became a symbol of summer and leisure, themes that poets have explored in their celebrations of the natural world and the simple life.