Slim jeans ... can we wear them yet?

[CatSquirrelDuck]

My teenage daughter looked at what I picked up on a whim yesterday and said, 'It's 2026 ... why are you buying slim jeans."

But I really like them ... I wanted something other than blue/black jeans which I can't wear to work ... and they had my 'long' size in stock ... can I keep them? 🤔

www.next.co.uk/style/su767555/y54038

Sorry haven't RTFT. I love the colour. I was a 'grunger' back in the day. Soggy trouser legs are not fun.

Just watch Emmerdale, all the main female characters, Charity, Chas, Ruby, Sarah etc seem to wear skinny jeans ! Maybe their set wardrobe needs updating, but they all look good to me.

I went on chat GPT to ask if skinny's were back as I wanted to wear with new suede boots I had bought, they said that yes skinnies and slim jeans were coming back for Autumn 2026

Exactly!

Snap! I recently bought these in the mid blue and indigo colour ways and am today waiting for a delivery of the brown ones! I have jeans in several different styles, including wide and barrel leg, but the slim straight leg is far more practical for everyday wear as you can wear almost any shoe, trainer or boot with it. I have some very expensive jeans, but I really like Next for a cheap Jean as their cuts seem to suit my proportions perfectly. And as for fashion, it seems that slimmer legs are beginning to make a resurgence (according to Vogue, Grazia and the Times fashion pages), so you can wear them with complete pride OP!

I mean, I’m not using emmerdale farm as my guide as to what’s on trend at the moment 😂

I mean, if aiming to look current, there are easier ways than very carefully styling skinny jeans, even if they are coming back into fashion a bit.

But no need for people to be personally offended that fashions change, given this has been happening for hundreds of years.

They aren’t coming back in though and won’t be for a long time, fashions don’t change that quick, as no one can afford it, think how long skinnies were in fashion, wide and barrel will be the same,

Ouch!

I am not a big fan of stretchy denim. It served a purpose to make slim and skinny jeans wearable, especially if your weight fluctuates during the day never mind month or year. But I think a relaxed pure denim is always a better look and lasts longer. The fact they don’t stretch means they flatten the stomach.

I also have quite the collection of jeans so I probably won’t be buying any new slim or skinny jeans. I’ve got those already and don’t need anymore. Tbf I don’t need any jeans but always find a reason.

I agree wet and muddy weather lends itself to straight legged or slim cut jeans.

Things certainly do change. When skinnies (mostly slim leg at that point, skin tight came later) made their comeback around the very early noughties, no-one pretended they were easy to wear. They were tricky and risky and that was the point. They were Kate Moss and Pete Doherty. Now all we hear is how useful they are in the rain and their trailblazers are the Princess of Wales and characters in Emmerdale

Yes I recall when they came in, so many saying they’d never wear them, they look like turnip legs, so unflattering.

before skinnies it was boot cut in the main, low rise with some tapered mom jeans,

it normally takes 20 - 30 years before a fashion comes back and each one lasts about ten years.

so skinnies went out of fashion 5 years ago with wide leg starting to make an appearance as skinnies tailed out of fashion at the same time, reaching its peak in 24 when skinnies were obsolete and wide, barrel, puddle etc took over fully,

so if history is anything to go by, we will have wide leg etc in fashion till at least the early 2030s, and skinnies won’t make a come back until about 2050s. But with a modification,

skinnies were last in fashion in the 80s where they were called drain pipes. And had slight differences , ie drain pipe had no stretch and no breathing room at the ankle, the same Jean. Just a slight modification

peiple saying they are coming back in, are not designers with some insight, more the remaining people who don’t want to let theirs go. Same as when they came in fashion, people were saying no way would they stop wearing their boot cut jeans,

I mean there seem to be small hints they are around a bit more again. I got my first pair of skinnies 20 years ago, and the fashionistas had already been wearing them for a year or two. Last time I bought skinny jeans was nearly ten years ago. And some people have been out of them for longer than that.

Frankly I wouldn’t know what to wear them with these days because all the other silhouettes in my wardrobe are so different too…

It does make me laugh that normally on this board you're considered flighty and dimwitted if you admit to being interested in fashion and yet, whenever there's an article in Vogue about skinny jeans, some posters are all over it.

For what it's worth, I think a slimmer leg is on the way back, and that this is being reflected on the catwalk and the fashion media, but I still think it'll be a few years before it takes hold. Too many people have only just made the switch to a wider, loose shape to change again so soon.

I think the modern skinny is a beast of its own. Far tighter than anything that came before because we didn’t have stretch fabrics. It was certainly a WTAF when they started to become fashionable. The fact that the denim stretches to fit is what made them a game changer. Everyone could wear them and they are comfortable. To some extent they are heavy duty leggings.

It is harder to get a good fit with conventional denim, before you even start to consider what shape looks best. At one stage buying jeans was the most stressful shopping experience you could imagine.

I think those who wear skinnies and Breton tops with Barbour jackets will continue to stick to that look. I have that combination in my wardrobe. These days I am more likely to wear wider leg jeans than the skinnies.

people saying they are coming back in, are not designers with some insight, more the remaining people who don’t want to let theirs go. Same as when they came in fashion, people were saying no way would they stop wearing their boot cut jeans,

Bless your heart! Except I’m talking about actual designer collections, not people rummaging through their wardrobes looking for validation for keeping their old jeans. 😂

People said exactly the same about bootcut jeans when skinnies took over.

Funny how fashion keeps moving, isn’t it? You’re confusing people’s personal attachment to a style with evidence of a trend. Gucci isn’t putting skinny jeans on the catwalk to help people justify their old Topshop purchases 🤣😆🤭

I’m curious to know what fashionable people do when a trend doesn’t suit them. Skinny jeans for example only really suit women with slim hips and long slim legs IMO. So that excludes quite a lot of us.

Wide cut jeans don’t suit those of us who are short and slight with boyish hips.

The style that suited me best was bootcut. Loved those in the 90s. I have no idea what I would wear now but luckily find jeans very uncomfortable so I don’t buy or wear them.

@Waitingfordoggo i simply wouldn’t wear it if it didn’t suit me.

If skinny jeans didn’t suit me, I’d wear a slim cut instead. You adapt the trend to what suits you rather than blindly following it. And slim-leg jeans are hardly some fashion relic that needs resurrecting anyway- they’ve never really gone away.

Being stylish is about knowing what works for you, not slavishly following every trend.

But for the OP I posted about skinny jeans being on the catwalk so she could score a point against her daughter sneering at her 🤣

I don't believe in 'what suits you', at least not in the way it's normally used on this board as code for making you look thinner or 'showing off your figure'. My idea of whether something suits me is whether I feel like me when I wear it.

But, to answer the question, if I don't like a trend, I don't wear it. I never wear trainers for example and, when heels were fashionable, I didn't wear them either. I don't dislike skinnies and I was quite happy wearing them for a while but I did get very, very bored with them and frustrated that, at that point, you couldn't buy any other shape on the high street. That doesn't happen now, things are much better in that respect.

I still wear both flares and Levi 501s sometimes and, when skinnies start to look interesting to me again then I'm sure I'll go back to them. But I've not worn them for 10 years and, so far, there's little sign of that happening to me,

I understand the love of your jeans, but pretending they are coming back is a little silly,

😂 Good grief, you’d think I was the CEO of Big Skinny Jean, the way this is being debated. The funny thing is, I don’t even like skinny jeans particularly- they make most people resemble a parsnip if they aren’t Kate moss 😆

I shared an article with actual photographs of Gucci, Valentino and other designers featuring skinny jeans on the catwalk. I’m not asking anyone to wear them, just pointing out that designers are revisiting the style.

You can dislike skinny jeans all you like, but sneering at Vogue doesn’t magically make the photographs disappear.

And this obsession with what’s supposedly fashionable is quite funny. I wore flares when they were out of fashion and I’ll wear skinny jeans when I feel like it. I don’t need a trend forecast to tell me what I’m allowed to put on my own body.

Perhaps the most amusing thing about fashion is watching people declare a style hideously passé, only to welcome it back with open arms a few years later when the right people tell them it’s fashionable again.

So wear your wide-leg jeans, your flares, your skinny jeans or a pair of Victorian bloomers for all I care. 😂

I posted an article about a fashion trend, not a manifesto. The fact that this has prompted such strenuous efforts to discredit the source rather than engage with the evidence is rather entertaining.

Do let me know who the new Supreme Court of Trousers is, though. I’d hate to miss the memo 🤣🤣🤣

The fashion police show up.

I have three pairs of jeans right now. One skinny, one mom, one balloon. Maybe I should add a slim fit pair to my rotation. I work from home on a screen so it’s rare for anyone to see my legs these days - I’ve defo lost touch with jeans fashion 😅

Ah see, I doubt I could even identify the difference between slim or skinny jeans. 🥴 I’m utterly hopeless at clothes but it saves me quite a lot of money so I’ve made my peace with it.

@teacupmadam and @Floisme If you would just continue to wear the style that suits you rather than what’s in fashion, I’m not sure you’re the people I’m asking the question of. I was interested in hearing from those who won’t wear something passé or old-fashioned. What do they do when a style of jeans comes into fashion that doesn’t suit them? Wear them anyway? Or just not wear jeans until their favoured style is back in fashion?