Flare Up
I was serious when I wrote yesterday that the flares on jeans could be as marked an indicator in a turn of trends as hemlines used to be. Hemlines no longer really matter in the way that they did in the twenties, fifties, sixties, etc. We now have the freedom to wear essentially any type of skirt we want. Recently I saw a long denim skirt at Intermix. I couldn't believe my eyes! It was almost identical to my favorite skirt from the tenth grade.
Anyway, late this summer, as the fall clothes were hitting the stores, something else happened. The jeans that were arriving had straight legs, or even tapers. Unprecedented! Seriously- the last time I can remember tapered legs being cool was in the late eighties on my Guess! jeans with the zipper up the back (the most expensive pair of jeans I had ever owned, and that I LOVED. I don't think I ever understood how clothes could make you feel sexy until I had those jeans. I was about twelve.)
At first I didn't really notice this new trend, but then I had dinner with one of my chicest friends, lets call her RV. She was wearing a pair of straightlegged J jeans, and they looked so fresh. I had thought I looked groovy in my "skinny on top, wide at the bottom" True Religions, but in that instant, like the word groovy, they suddenly looked old and obsolete. Of course I ran out and got a pair of J's immediately.
Is this a plot by retailers to keep us buying jeans? Were they sensing that we had od'd on the flares? Or could it be that we decided we were tired of soaking up everything on the street, so that on rainy days when we got to work our jeans were soaked to the knee? I will tell you that the trend for big high boots is certainly a factor. I wonder if the boot people and the jeans people talk!
On bluefly you can now find all the flared jeans you would have died for last fall on big big sale. It makes me sort of sad. My Trues, which were once evening only jeans, are now my Sunday afternoon jeans, content to be paired with some tennis shoes and a floppy old button down. And I have three pairs of skinny legs, that I plan my week around.
Next time: Leggings- the new jeans?
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I think J brand and tsubi fit the best and nothing feels chicer than black skinny jeans and black flats, a little rocker- a little Audrey.
WIth J brand though, it is imparative to buy them a size too small because if they fit walking out the store, only hours later, you will end up with still skinny legs and a droopy backside, not sexy or chic.
You could not be more correct! I actually bought mine true to size, and they are saggy in the butt. But I got a pair at Top Shop that are PERFECT. Nice and tight and black. I wear them with hot pink pumps.