Skinny jeans - how did they stay ‘in’ for so long?

[TheOGCCL]

Whether you like it or not, baggier jean shapes are more fashionable at the moment. There are plenty of skinnies in the shops but these are not what the high fashionistas are wearing and a glance down Oxford Street last night showed many more (youngish) people in looser clothing. It struck me that the real talking point is how skinny jeans managed to stay ‘in’ for so long.

They are so eminently practical for everything and everywhere you would have thought the fashion industry would have allowed them for a season or two maximum. Instead it feels like they were actually in for about 15 years, and that it took a pandemic, driving a new desire for relaxed shapes, to dislodge them, finally.

And that actually they haven’t really been completely dislodged, so many people have taken them to their heart, even where they don’t even suit their body shape particularly. Has people power kept them in fashion?

Ha, only just come back and thread has been busy - I was grumpy yesterday so maybe didn't phrase that brilliantly but still - of course we're all aware of fashion as a concept, and of course some people follow it and are interested, but I've never got my head around people just buying and wearing what is deemed to be "in" just because some random has said it is. And yes, of course we're affected by what's in the shops but that doesn't mean we have to buy/wear those things!

Didn't mean to sound quite so arsey, more disbelieving that anyone would stop wearing something they love just because it's been declared to be out of fashion.

But I've always been like this, and my style sense probably wouldn't be acceptable at any point in proper fashion circles because I essentially play dress up 😂

When the stuff I like is in I buy lots of it so I can keep wearing it when it's very much not, and when what's in the shops doesn't suit me at all.

And your comment followed by someone arguing that very same thing!

"of course we're affected by what's in the shops but that doesn't mean we have to buy/wear those things!"

Well, unless you make your own clothes you DO have to buy and wear what is in the shops!

"more disbelieving that anyone would stop wearing something they love just because it's been declared to be out of fashion."

It's probably more of a gradual thing that is just starts to look 'wrong'. Some people just get there faster than others.

@Gwenhwyfar I think I'm tired and not explaining myself properly - if you already own clothes you like and the current season stuff isn't your thing, you can just keep wearing the stuff you like and not buy any of the new, "in" but not your style, clothes. You don't have to buy clothes you don't like just because they're there and in fashion, as clothes should last longer than a season so can be worn until your preferred styles come back into fashion and therefore the shops.

I think everything probably ends up in fashion eventually - I've worn western boots all my life, much to the disgust of the cooler kids at school. Just recently I've seen quite a few people out and about wearing them so perhaps they're making an entrance into fashion?!

Maybe I'm just on the wrong board 😂

Skinnies were fashionable from about 2005, but it was 2007 when not just super fashionable or young people started wearing them.

I don’t understand the argument that it has to be skinny jeans as anything else isn’t practical, most other trousers aren’t as tight round the ankle as skinny jeans, straight leg trousers aren’t soaking up water. It doesn’t have to be super baggy if not tight leg jeans. I tried on my skinnies the other day and after months of dresses or floaty summer trousers and shorts, something tight on my thighs didn’t feel nice. I reckon we’ll all get used to not having tight legs on trousers and then skinnies will come back in again and it’ll be hideous.

I’m really interested in people describing skinnies as classics. I’m 45 and never came across that shape until the 2000’s and then def later in that decade. Appreciate that drainpipes may have been 80’s but all I’m saying is that until I was in my 30’s skinnies were a shape that I had never really seen out and about and certainly hadn’t bought. I live in a big city and have some very fashionable friends, I clearly remember discussions with my friends about how weird skinnies felt when we first tried them, which I’m going to say was about 2005. So I just can’t see that they are classics

I don't buy the 'skinnies are a classic' line either. Prior to Kate Moss bringing them back they were, as you say, known as drainpipes and were solely the preserve of unfashionable heavy metal fans. So nah, I'm to be convinced that they're a 'classic'

I tend to veer towards what suits me rather than what the fashionistas wear. I also don't want to wear the same jeans as my 16 year old really.

I distinctly remember my friends and I pouring and literally sewing ourselves into our jeans in the early 80s too.

You can guarantee these are skinny jeans dated? threads will still be appearing in 5 years, they have already hit the 10 year mark since the first one appeared.

I agree; I remember squeezing into some snow wash drainpipes in the 80s as a kid and then didn't see/own skinnies again until mid 00s. I was initially unconvinced and remember talking to friends about how you needed to 'retrain you eye' to get used to a completely different (and in my case, slightly parsnippy) silhouette.

They were a godsend for fast fashion. Cheaper to make but sold at the time at the same price as the bootcut jeans. Cheaper stetch fabric (generally as their rise to popularity aligned with the fast fashion boom). I don't think you can get away with the same drop in quality with looser fits.

I hated skinnies until I tried some Levi's, which actually had some support and were cut for a curvy figure instead of relying on lycra to fit. Wish I still fit in them :(

I remember mufti days when I was in year 9 circa 2005 and everyone wore skinny jeans. I started uni in 2010 and it was all about the skinny then too. Went to a Jean shop on Oxford street in 2014 and the shop assistant looked at me like I had 2 heads when I asked if they did anything but skinny jeans

Really @MinglingFlamingo? Because mom jeans were definitely in in 2014 as were straight leg jeans. I bought my first pair in my first year of uni which was 2013, and everyone was wearing them in 2014/2015. Before then I definitely had boyfriend jeans and girlfriend jeans so not sure why others were struggling to find non skinnies

Skinnies were definitely in from 2007, I remember going on my first residential trip and we all had the skinny jeans with the zips at the bottom. Probably earlier but I was too young

"@Gwenhwyfar I think I'm tired and not explaining myself properly - if you already own clothes you like and the current season stuff isn't your thing, you can just keep wearing the stuff you like and not buy any of the new, "in" but not your style, clothes. You don't have to buy clothes you don't like just because they're there and in fashion, as clothes should last longer than a season so can be worn until your preferred styles come back into fashion and therefore the shops."

You can't because they will get ripped and you'll get fed up of patching them up and you'll need to buy new things or the baggy tops you have to wear with them will become old and need to be replaced. Nothing you wear often can last much more than twenty years. They will eventually need to be replaced.

You're obviously MUCH younger than me because my mufti days I wore a puffball skirt at age 12. Maybe the fashion for people my age happened later.
Also, of course it depends where you live.

One of the advantages about getting older is you don't give a shit anymore about who decrees what you should be wearing. You do you.

I think once the “whole” look comes in baggy, boot cut or flares will become much more popular.
At the moment dresses are still really popular.
Once winter clothes embed and we see what the look is then we can wear the bottom half better.

They've been in fashion for more than 15 years though, I remember buying a pair in 2005, so that's 17 years.
Even bootcut jeans didn't last that long!

@MinglingFlamingo - year 9 is when you start doing fashion! Year 8 clothes generally don’t fit so need new wardrobe, but this is when you fit into the smaller end of the high street adult clothes rather than kids ranges (12-13 size is often the last one shops do in kids ranges). That you were all wearing the most fashionable jean style doesn’t surprise me at all!

2008 I went on a group holiday and all the woman had skinnies - it stuck in my mind as one woman was discussing them saying that as she’s just turned 30 she no longer was an early adopter of new fashions - I was a couple of years younger and had been wearing them a while.

@lightisnotwhite - I think you are right. I think round here, skinnies have already passed from not being “what’s in fashion” into fully “dated”.

Round here they haven't. I don't live in a town or city though, and in winter we wear jeans that can be tucked into boots/wellies.

Interestingly I was in France this summer and when I browsed around the shops I saw almost entirely skinny or very slim fit jeans. It was too hot to wear denim so I don't know if that reflects what people are really wearing.

Skinny jeans are hideous. They make even the skinniest people look like parsnips.

@Alexaspartyline

I have some fantastic loose combats that will go great with my boots and jumpers, and plan to wear my long wool coat over them, but can't for the life of me bear going back to those bland, hip length raincoats that we all wore with skinny jeans.

I'm sure your outfit doesn't look like this, but the description made me think of this 😁

"Do people really listen to and wear what is "in" and what the "high fashionistas" are wearing whether or not it suits them?! You learn something every day - don't people just wear what they actually like?"

No because you're limited to what is actually available in the shops.

But unless you're looking for the Tudor collars you mentioned in another post, you will still be able to buy what you actually like, even skinny jeans. I am a bootcut jeans wearer, and I'm sit I'm very unfashionable, but I have managed to continue wearing bootcut jeans from when they went out of fashion to now. I've been able to buy new pairs, when old ones wore out and certainly haven't had to resort to endless patching up of 20 year old jeans. Yes, there has been less choice of bootcut jean but I've still manged to buy new pairs when I've needed to. I imagine skinny jeans will continue to be available in the same way.

@Wallaw