Skinny Jeans Aren’t Canceled
The skinniest of the skinnies.
In the past few years, the question I have been asked the most (by a WIDE margin) has been: “Do I have to stop wearing skinny jeans?”
Skinny jeans had a chokehold on millennials as we came into adulthood and most of us built our wardrobes around them. All of our tops and shoes made sense with skinny jeans. Then seemingly overnight, fashion media deemed the skinny jean chronically uncool.
Understandably, a lot of millennials panicked. If that’s you, I’ll say now what I always say in response to this question:
If you love your skinny jeans, keep wearing them. If you didn’t like them in the first place and only wore them because they were on trend, set them on fire.
Ok, so back to business. Why does it feel like skinny jeans are canceled?
Social media is not reality. I know. Take a minute if you need. The way trends proliferate online now can make you feel insane. Believe it or not, people who aren’t chronically online don’t think skinny jeans are over. Hard to believe those people exist, but I promise you they do. Here’s the thing…
If you spend too much time online, trends feel way bigger than they actually are IRL.
Here’s why: Trend-related content garners a lot of views, very quickly. Trend content can make a small creator go viral and change the trajectory of their career. There are creators who get agents after just 1 piece of content goes viral! So obviously, creators are incentivized to make more content about anything that could go viral and for fashion creators, that is trends. Once something starts trending, creators, understandably, make content about it and it just snowballs from there.
BUTTTTT!!!!!
The number of views / posts / hashtags / etc of a trend is going to be way higher than how that trend is showing up in real life.
A couple of months ago, my Discover page on Instagram was filled with sneakers with pearl shoelaces. Literally 100% of the posts on the screen were different variations on that trend. I have NEVER seen this on a real person. (Admittedly, I did consider doing it and then decided I didn’t care enough.)
Remember “mob wife aesthetic” the internet loved so much? I saw hundreds, if not thousands of posts about it. Meanwhile, being a personal stylist who takes note of every outfit around me and lives in New York City, I saw maybe 5 women wearing “mob wife” IRL. So anyway, back to skinny jeans.
Don’t just take my word for it. As of the writing of this blog post in summer 2024, Nordstrom has 513 pairs of skinny jeans available for purchase. Saks has 191, Bloomingdales has 159, Shopbop has 105.
So please, I beg of you, if you like skinny jeans, PLEASE keep wearing them. With a few updates, you can easily bring skinnies into 2024 and beyond. Here are some suggestions!
TOPS THAT COMMAND ATTENTION
Skinny jeans are the perfect way to let a bold top steal the show — especially tops that are voluminous, have unusual cuts, or are really tailored. By pairing them with a skinny jean, you’re letting the top be the focus of attention. My picks:
This top looks SO GOOD with these skinny orange pants. However, the person who styled it with these wide leg jeans deserves a demotion. Or at least a stern talking to. A skinny jean would be the perfect compliment to this top when wearing orange head to toe feels like too much.
Cynthia Rowley Organza Bow Sleeveless Top
The person who paired this top with denim culottes deserves jail time. While I’m not mad at the chunky short, it doesn’t feel like something a real person would wear.
This top, with all its glory and texture, would be perfect with a skinny jean. A top like this should be the first thing your eye goes to when you look at someone. Look at those photos again, where does your eye go? In the black version, it just feels like a big blob and it's hard to even understand what is what. In the pink version, your eye goes straight for those weird, cropped bell hems. Paired with a skinny jean, your eye would go straight for that big bow - exactly as it should!
STATEMENT BOOTS
Tall boots are doing the most lately and we have to let them shine. Can you wear them under wide-leg, billowy jeans? You can, but why would you want to?? And as for skirts and dresses: Yes, they work too but sometimes (more often than not for most of you!) you just want to wear pants. Plus, if it’s cold enough to wear boots, you’re going to want to wear something that covers your legs. Skinny jeans are the best answer here.
A nice pair of skinny jeans will let gorgeous boots like these be the star of your outfit! And frankly, they deserve that.
Sam Edelman, Sylivia Knee High Boot
How dare anyone cover up this gorgeous snake print with a wide leg jean or long skirt!
Stuart Weitzman 5050 Bold Crystal Fringe Boot
A glam twist on Stuart Weitzman’s most classic, most cult-status style boot. Jail time for hiding these beauties under clothes.
And don’t even get me started on tucking wider jeans into boots. With some boots it's physically impossible to tuck in larger pants but even when it is…it just…looks…horrible!! You cannot tell me this looks good. I will not accept it. I also want the merchandisers who did this to get in big trouble.
So the moral of the story here is that not only are skinny jeans alive and well but they are a classic and a versatile styling tool for complementing and letting your most special, ornate, structural pieces shine.
Skinny jeans for life!
