Barrel style jeans - wtf?

[MyGhastIsFlabbered]

I've been seeing these all over the place and I just don't understand who would look good in them? Maybe it's because I'm short and on the dumpier side so can't imagine anything less flattering to me, but I don't think they look good on any of the advertising I've seen either? Am I officially old now?

If you are officially old for this then I must be too! I think barrel jeans are bizarre and universally unflattering, and a great demonstration of how "fashion" is about made up nonsense we feel compelled to buy for fear of being "out of style".

I'm a state pensioner so I think I win as far as being 'officially old' goes.

I really like them and I've been wearing them since finding some on Uniqlo about 6 or 7 years ago.

I think the current choice of jeans style is great - something for pretty much everyone and no compulsion for anyone to wear something they don't like. Long may it continue.

They don't flatter any of the models. Can't imagine they flattering anyone else.

Inspired by the other thread I bought the TU ones. Absolutely awful. Had fun striking ridiculous model poses in them though (and they still looked rubbish).

But then I never liked skinny jeans either. I've stuck with bootleg and straight.

"Do my thighs look big in these?"
"Yes they look twice as big as they actually are"
"Oh great I'm so on trend!"

I really like them. They are very comfy, though better for dressing down than up. I’m in my 50s and have been wearing them for 3 or 4 years.
I prefer the really wide leg jeans, which can be dressed up a bit more imo, but it’s always nice to have options.

I have a pair of M&S carrot jeans which are similar to barrel cut, and they are SO flattering. I say this as someone with wide hips and a small waist who is usually paranoid about looking fat. I think the volume makes me look thinner, somehow. Certainly I feel way slimmer and more attractive in them than in my one remaining pair of skinny jeans, which I barely wear these days - and the barrel cut ones are way comfier, too!

I like them. I got the Tu ones and the Size 10 waist is exactly the right size and in the right place. The looseness around the bum and legs is really comfortable. I have a fairly big bust and skinny hips so I think it balances out but I really don't care what other people think I look like. Some styles of jeans are baggy round my thighs at least these look like they're meant to be that way.

I often wonder if some items that come into fashion are an in joke between the kinds of people that influence fashion (Anna Wintour et al?).

In the same way you might have a bet with a colleague that they can't get the word fartlek or canoodle into a senior management meeting, they sit around and take bets on what they can get the gullible masses to buy and wear.

'Jeans that make you look bow-legged? No chance anyone's falling for that Denise. You've gone too far this time'.

See also everything Kanye West has ever produced.

I have flared jeans, but in all honesty, every time I wear them, I feel like I'm dressing up in my teenage clothes again.

I'd think about wide leg jeans, but I've accepted that I'm not really a baggy person. Even back in the 90s, I preferred my leather trousers to my combats. I'm tall and slim. I like to look tall and slim. I've done my time in oversize t shirts and shape hiding clothes. Give me skinny jeans and pedal pushers. I want to dress like marilyn Monroe would have, if she'd joined The Ramones.

I love mine and think they are flattering as I have a small waist and wide hips and fat thighs and you can’t really see what is body and what is fabric.

But I might be totally deluding myself and actually look like a dumpy clown.

OP you are not officially old as you are still giving a hoot about being in fashion.

I want to dress like marilyn Monroe would have, if she'd joined The Ramones.

That's perfect!

I think they look fab on Trinny for example. I think she is size 6/8 5 ft ten with short legs and long body (according to herself) I haven't seen them look good on anyone else.

May I ask which ones you have?

Like most style of jeans, they suit some and not others. Cos and Toast have made trousers like this for years and M&S have done some too. Lots more now. Skinnies don’t suit me. Wide leg does. Barrel legs are ok if you are tall and slim. Short and wide - no. Barrel legs work in chino styles fairly well but should be rolled up.

I think there are a whole mix of ‘barrel leg jeans’.

I’ve got the Whistles ones and I don’t think the shape is that extreme at all. They suit me - I’m tall and like PPs I have a slim waist compared to hips (26 inches to 38 inches). They’re nice and fitted on the waist and looser on the legs.

https://www.whistles.com/product/stretch-barrel-leg-jean-33219.html#q=Barrel&is=false&sz=60&start=0&isSecondPage=false&pid=stretch-barrel-leg-jean-33219&pos=1

However some other barrel jeans are much more extreme shapes.

https://www.asos.com/asos-design/asos-design-high-waisted-barrel-leg-jeans-in-mid-blue/prd/207626030

BUT I’d also say fashion isn’t about what is flattering. Dressing to flatter a shape is one way of dressing. But plenty of people dress for fun, to be creative etc.

They back in again are they, had a pair of barrel cut offs in about 2004 looking back they were horrible. Comfy though

Yours are ok, the second ones are very John Wayne is big leggy.

They suit my teen daughter but she is tall-ish and very slim 😬

I suppose jeans look good in that oversized, I've borrowed my man's trews kind of way.
As I am already barrel shaped, its a no from me. Along with carrots and paper bags.

I’m on that Sainsbury’s fan girl thread and honestly, even the models in the pics posted look utterly silly in them. Same with the Whistles ones posted above imho. Flattering my arse. Which they wouldn’t btw.

I can assure you these are not in fashion

This is terrible. Who's forcing you all to wear them? Would you like someone to have a word?

I want to dress like marilyn Monroe would have, if she'd joined The Ramones.

Fabulous! That sounds like my kind of style choice!