The snackers at the nearby food shacks are all in skinnies and the shoppers are too. So now for that game. It's 2. In the first minute, 14 pairs of skinny jeans go past. Another 40 pass in both directions over the next three minutes. Then another 44 in two minutes. Over the next four minutes, That's in 10 minutes. If this average were to hold, more than 1, pairs would cross this shopfront in an hour. Among those passing is Haleema Kukoyi, 24, who bought her jeans in Evans, the plus-size shop.
Contrary to the instinct that skinny jeans give the self-conscious nowhere to hide, she likes them precisely because she has "weird-shaped legs and these work best for me. Aminah Abdullah, 17, from Cologne, wears them "because they make your legs look skinny", even though her mother doesn't like them.
Donna Watson, 26, and Ross Callender, 25, are both in smart, dark skinnies. She is a marketing manager for The Chimes shopping centre in Uxbridge, and he is a marketing manager for an insurance company. Can their marketing expertise explain the success of skinny jeans?
Witness Hayley Carruthers, 42, who bought her first pair last week. Why wait all these years and then take the leap? Of a kind. Skinny jeans are less a fashion choice than a default setting. We have come to see them almost as a blank canvas, a piece of clothing that has ceased to signify anything; come, in fact, almost not to see them at all.
It is this invisibility that has enabled them to act as the vehicle for countless other mainstream trends of the past decade, the silent partner to a succession of high-fashion looks. First they tucked neatly into boots early in the decade, when boots were all that women wore, or worked well with Converse when Converse were all that men wore. It was skinny jeans that made ballet pumps prolific , fetishising that little scooped-out bit of foot between shoe and hem, and later, with their cleanness at the ankle, acted as a curtain-raiser to hefty statement shoes.
They gave extra spike to handbags with hardware in and their narrowness at the ankle supplied the perfect counterpoint to those pointy shoulders that Balmain produced in Without skinny jeans there would have been no peplums. They were one half of double denim, and, chameleon-like, have changed their livery in keeping with fashion, morphing into high-waisted jeans, ripped jeans, embellished jeans, leather-panelled, corduroy, patterned, cropped, tattooed and coloured jeans. They even swallowed up leggings into jeggings and shrunk the language of other clothing too.
So scarves became skinny scarves. Thin ties were skinny ties, stilettoes skinny heels. There are such things as skinny sweatpants. And yet this ubiquity appears to do nothing to dent their popularity. This is not usually how fashion works.
When Carol Vorderman wore Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress in , at the height of its A-list acclaim, she killed it as high fashion and he had to invent the Moon dress to give fashionable types some distance. But when Carol "the style goddess", as the Daily Mail calls her, wears skinny jeans, nothing happens except in the Mail , which wonders whether they're age appropriate: she is 51 after all.
Or worse, old. Instead, straight-leg, bootcuts, and flare jeans are back, aka the sort of denim that was popular in the '90s when Gen Z were infants being babysat by millennials. As someone born on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z, I don't know what to feel about the latest development in the absolutely pointless intergenerational war. My birthday falls right in between the two battling groups, meaning I have absolutely no idea which side I'm obligated to support—or identify with.
But I've always been the person to wear whatever makes me happy, and I'll continue to stand by that. So, not that anyone asked, but here's where I stand on the debate and I'm sure a lot of you agree. I get that fashion is cyclical and trends come and go in some way or another, but I don't see skinny jeans as a trend—I see it as the only solution for vertically challenged folks. We have to acknowledge that millennials didn't always wear skinny jeans either. Standing at barely 5 foot 2, I cringe when reflecting on my denim history.
I've always been significantly shorter than the rest of my peers, and the denim gods did not help us get through our most awkward years. Even jeans marked as "short" or "petite" weren't very short and petite on me.
The midriff-baring, low-rise, wide-leg jeans phase popularized by millennials were a no-go on my stubby legs. I'd walk around the hallways lugging my excess pant bottoms like the burden they were, and by the time I got back home, the ends were painted black from the dirt and debris they picked up.
In other words, I could only wear my jeans once before having to toss them in the washer—which is against all the rules for laundering denim. It was a lose-lose dilemma: wash jeans after every wear costly or pay out of pocket to hem the legs to match my short ones again, costly.
I still vividly remember the tailor chuckling at how much fabric she had to take off. Look for something with a nine- to inch rise. The solution: If you want to add a little perk to a flat butt, look for a brand that offers five-pocket sizes, as opposed to three, which is an industry standard. Each pocket is set by hand, chalked into the correct position, and sewn one pocket at a time. Paying close attention to the pockets is key for any butt fit issues you may have. The solution: Be sure to differentiate the various silhouette offerings, as even half an inch can make a big difference when it comes to leg openings.
Next, the 20 best pairs of white jeans.
0コメント