I do believe there are 3 Kardashians in those links-- the oldest one is like 32, Kim is like 30, and the younger one is mid 20s. That said, I actually am 24, so I feel there’s no harm in my dressing like that (despite my fatness, I mean) :D.
This is mainly a generational difference I think. I don’t know any fashionable women under 26-27 who don’t wear the tall boots/tucked in jeans (usually skinny) combo often, but I don’t see it on many women much older (except the very fashionable ones). Personally, I very rarely wear my boots with skirts - the look usually makes me think either ‘cowgirl’ or ‘prostitute’. This on the other hand = awesome. Hot jockey or polo player, yes please.
I really, really hope low-rise narrow-leg jeans never go away fully, because they are perfect for my body and I intend to wear the for the rest of my life. High-waist jeans are uncomfortable and make me look deformed since I have an incredibly short upper body and waist. I’m 65" tall but my pelvis and legs are 42" of that - even mid-rise pants are only 3" away from my ribs. Also, I have a 6-pack and many still make me look paunchy (I love to try things on, even things I know I’d never buy). Wide-leg pants make my legs look awkwardly thin and hide most of my curves. They look good on a lot of people, there should always be more options, but they sure aren’t for me.
Yeah, I actually agree that I find high waisted pants really, really uncomfortable. Being the little follower I am, I tried the trend when it was big a year or so ago and I would find my sides aching whenever I was sitting for a long time at work. I have a naturally high, small waist compared to my hips, so I’d always end up with my jeans digging into my waist when I sat, even if they fit fine otherwise. No me gusta.
Of course, I’m talking about the truly high waisted jeans. like these, sans buttons, and mine weren’t skinny jeans. For me, personally, even the jeans in the famed Fat Girl Store (yup, that’s trademarked, y’all!), Lane Bryant, sit far too high and are very uncomfortable for me. I don’t want to have to wax to wear jeans, but I like them to sit below my belly button. My favorite brand at the moment are Source of Wisdom.
Honestly, I’ve come to appreciate skinny jeans for most body types (with the caveat that they need to fit properly, of course).
I used to hate them on principle for “emphasizing wide hips”. I have wide hips and an ass. My hip measurement is 15" larger than my natural waist measurement. But the funny thing is that the larger waist/hip difference is seen as inherently feminine*; why is showing that hip width seen as a bad thing? Why is it desirable to minimize a key feminine feature?
I used to believe in “balancing” out my curves; it’s what’s been drilled into my head. Do you know what wide leg pants (always recommended for my shape) do to me? Yes, they prevent me from looking like an ice cream cone. Know what they also do? They make me look much wider than I am, all the way down my legs. It doesn’t matter if the fabric is structured or flowing; wide legs visually add pounds to me (like, a lot).
So, is it better to look like I’m balanced, but 40 lbs heavier? Or “unbalanced” with feminine curves and no optical illusion +40lbs?
Honestly, “balancing curves” seems like such a “white thing”. And I say this as a pasty-assed woman. 
Embrace the shape you have! My jeans brand of choice is Apple Bottoms because they design for women with big hips and asses. I have a pair of skinnies from them, actually **. Know what? They look great because they know how to make a big ass look great. They treat a curvy ass as an asset (heh heh), not a liability.
Literally 99% of the men who hit on me, flirt, stare (whatever) are black, hispanic or middle eastern. Not white (note the above paragraph). Black and hispanic men, particularly, seem far more attracted to serious curves (and here, “curves” is not related to weight. I’m talking strictly proportions here, for thin or fat women). It’s like one episode of What Not To Wear, when a black woman was on. She was showing this one “before” outfit in the mirror of shame; it included very fitted jeans over her larger butt. The hosts immediately say, “see? That makes your butt look HUGE!”
Know what she said? “I know! My butt looks fab in these, doesn’t it?!”
The culture clash there was funny. Were the hosts right, or was the woman right? The answer is that neither is right. Neither is wrong, either.
- yes yes yes, there are women who have smaller waist/hip differences and they’re no less female, blahblah, I KNOW. You know what I friggin’ mean, here.
** Like I said, I was anti-skinny jeans for curvy types before. I tried some on in a brand I know actually fits and flatters me.
Well, I have a WHR of .68 and I carry my weight in my butt and thighs. I’m skinny though. Still I am curvier than the average lady by measurements, and my skinny jeans do not make me look straight or square.
I agree that you (and everyone) should wear what makes you comfortable in all ways, I’m not trying to convince you to wear skinnies.
Maybe it’s mostly a weight issue. Mostly people seem to have the problem with anyone who’s not really thin wearing these pants, regardless of how curvy they are (‘curvy’ meaning the difference between shoulders/bust/waist/hips/thighs, not the amount of flesh total). I think women with flesh and curvy hips look dead sexy in these pants, I actually find them much less attractive on the straight-hipped, super-skinny women who model them in advertising…
Personally I love the skinny jeans & I am 39 years old & not as fit as I was in my 20’s - but I still feel like they are the best style on my body type - I am 5’9" and about 130lb, with slender high hip bones & a “round” bum that doesn’t look flattened in any jeans, and I wear shirts that come down to right below my hips or lower with them, and shoes with at least an inch and a half of heel or boots.
On women with wider hips and/or flatter bums as long as her legs are slender, and tapered (slim ankles too) - a longer shirt and higher heels look fine with the shinny jeans - like a nice empire-waisted blouse that falls below the widest part of the hips and ruffles out like baby doll pajamas. Christina Hendricks’ blouse was a little high for those jeans with her hips, and flipflops are icky but her legs are nice enough to wear those jeans.
Also, I think you need a bit of “rebel” in your style to pull them off. My style is very rock & roll - and until skinny jeans are completely dated or my hips expand you’d have to pry them off me with a crowbar! I don’t want to go back to wide legs that make me look like I am completely curveless on the bottom.
Yup, it’s all a matter of fit. I could walk into Sears and throw on a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt fat girl skinny jeans, but I can tell you that they will look absolutely atrocious on me. The waist will be way too high, the butt will be all pancakey, the fabric will be too tight on my hips/gut and too loose on my waist, all while the thick fabric bunches awkwardly at my knees.
But if I roll over to Torrid and grab my favorite pair of Source of Wisdom skinnies, which are all stretchy and wonderful-- my ass will look fantastic. I could then turn around and try on 50 more pairs of different brands of skinnies in the same store, all of which will look awful on me. Fact is, you have to find a brand that works for you and stick with it (or try on 100 pairs of jeans every time you shop, whichever). For me, that brand is Source of Wisdom. For zweisamkeit, that’s Apple Bottoms.
Weren’t we all wearing these same jeans in the eighties (albeit with a higher waist)? I loved them then, and I love them now.
Weird- this is what I would have said about low-rise jeans. The pockets sag low, hitting right at the fold between leg and ass and making for deformed rectangle butt. Also, nearly every pair I’ve ever tried on fit my hips but failed to indent again at the waist, resulting in a kangaroo pocket at my lower back. I guess I could stick my purse in there…
I also have the longstanding pocket problem and the gaping waistbands, you just have to find the right pair if you have a small waist, round hips, and a high ass.
My favorite brand of denim is Bullhead, carried in PacSun stores. I know a lot of (young) women of hugely varying sizes that wear these jeans, they are unusually flattering on a pretty wide variety of body types and sizes. And they have nice neat, high ass-pockets. They are juniors sizes though, only go up to a 15 which is a 42" hip.
Yep, we sure did - I had jeans which were practically painted on, ones with zippers up the sides, ones with zippers up the front of the legs, once with lace-up sides - just not the zipper right around the crotch (those ones were for the easy girls). When my teenage niece got a pair of shinny jeans a few years ago - my immediate reaction was to ask where she got them! I missed them so much!
Put me down as another who hope the low rise stays - my hip bones are way too high & some high waisted jeans used to cut into my hip bones with the waist band, so I was stuck with very few brands I could wear, one of which were called FancyAss.
There are two kinds of people who can pull off “skinny jeans.”
- A teenage girl who weighs under 120lbs.
- Another teenage girl weighs under 120lbs.
Everyone else- STOP. JUST STOP. You look like shit.
ETA: Links are to grown-ass women with thighs, wearing jeans that are tight and tapered in the lower leg.
I work in San Francisco (mostly, on a project) and I see almost none of the fashionistas wearing them. By “skinny jeans” I mean the ultra-tight jeans, certainly tight well fitted jeans are common, but skirts are now more in. Or actual tights, under a skirt.
I am rather awed at the very high heels (now worn without stockings/pantyhose) or “pirate” boots.
Exactly. I don’t have as much as I’d like in the hip department, but skinny jeans help me make the most of it. Why would anyone want to hide that they curve out there?
Also I think bigger girls look great in well fitting skinny jeans. It’s always better to celebrate your shape than to hide it.
It doesn’t seem to be as much as case of how, um, many curves a woman has, but how tall she is. Too many women seem to become a lot shorter when they wear skinny jeans, the resultant look is a bit odd to say the least.
Personally I think there is a big difference between ‘skinny’ jeans and just tight jeans. The 80s style jeans were just tight everywhere, ‘skinny’ jeans seem to mix just about every disasterous piece of trouser styling for the last 25 years into some sort of hideous abomination of trendyness over common sense.
The sort the trendy’s wear in London, the sort that almost everyone under thirty in Shoreditch seems to wear, manages to combine lycra tight legs with terrible ‘hitches’ of material, a saggy arse and low waist that shows the top of the boxers. Commonly the actual crotch will be low enough that people seem to waddle rather than walk, and guys have to freqwuently stop to pull their trousers up. I might be slightly exagerating, but I’m 100% serious. They look fucking ridiculous.
The only people who have every looked good in skinny jeans are the sort of people who look good whatever they wear. Ie super-hot people. Everyone else looks like shit.
I can honestly think of only 2 reasons for the invention of ‘skinny’ jeans. Either the marketing department at a jeans company decided they needed a new ‘cool’ look but discovered that everything else had already been done, or they are someone’s idea of a joke. Admittedly it is quite a funny joke
Still, they are at least better than Goth platform boots.
I still don’t think half the people posting in this thread understand what ‘skinny jeans’ are. They are not skintight jeans to too-small jeans. They are any fitted jeans cut with a tapered leg, that closely follows the lines of your actual leg. Their only defining characteristic is a very tapered calf or ankle. Most aren’t any tighter in the hips or thighs than any other cuts of jeans sold these days.
They do sell ‘skinny jeans’ that are truly skintight, or ‘jeggings’ which are basically thicker stretch leggings with pockets and a button so they look like jeans. But most ‘skinnies’ are just regular jeans with a fitted, tapered leg.
I’m a size 14 and I wear skinny jeans sometimes. I have three pairs (all together, I have at least 20 pairs of jeans). They are all dark-wash–very dark. tightest ones I wear tucked into boots; I bought them specifically to wear that way. Another pair is fairly loose-fitting, although technically they are skinny jeans. The other pair is getting too big in the waist because I’ve been losing weight, so I don’t wear them much anymore.
Also, I’m in my 50s. I know, I should be lashed for wearing skinny jeans. But you know what? I don’t care what you think about my clothes. Any of you.
Yes, exactly. The ones Christina Hendricks is wearing in that photo are light colored and very, very tight. Mine aren’t that tight, and they are dark, almost black, so they look much different from the ones on Christina. I’m not thin (as mentioned above, size 14), but I work out pretty much every day, and also? I don’t care what you think about my clothes.
Worth repeating.
I can’t believe so many folks are screeching that skinny jeans are cut funny up top. If your skinny jeans have a weird, ill fitting rise, then your regular jeans probably do, too. Like I said, I buy the exact. same. brand. The only difference is the cut of the leg.