It’s early in the season, but I can already tell this printed jeans thing is going to be my undoing. I can’t recall the last time there was a trend so hard-wired to both drive me wild with acquisitional desire, and flatter me not in the least. My legs are perfectly OK, but they’re definitely not the place I should be taking interesting risks with intriguing patterns.
The odds that I could pull off this rather fantasmagoric pair from Iro? Slim to none.
And this faux-boix style from J Brand? Only nominally better. (Though I do actually think these might be made not to overwhelm if you wore them with simple flat boots and a big old sweater.)
Most dangerously (because I’m viewing them as less of a risk, and am therefore more likely to take the plunge) I’ve become fixated on ombre jeans, specifically this pair from Rag & Bone (which also comes in a possibly more wearable—but for my money a touch less excellently great—black and rust version).
And call me nuts, but I’m also dying over this Pierre Balmain pair. If I had an extra $700 lying around for a pair of jeans—and felt that $700 was ever an appropriate amount to spend on a pair of jeans under any circumstance—I’d be right on it. Meanwhile, Cheap Monday‘s got a very high-waisted version that goes for $99 (do you guys ever go for the very high waist?) and Helmut Lang’s got these, which have a far more more gradual fade.
(Also: while we’re talking denim with a difference: what thinks of these? The hem keeps striking me as kind of cute, but also disturbingly reminiscent of a hoof. Does anyone else see this?)
I think the big old sweater would be key, and, still they’d have to be weekend-wear only.
I do see hooves, so I’d vote Rag & Bone – not the rust though.
Oy and Egad after your comment I can only think “hoof” looking at the last pair of jeans. Horse if one is long limbed. Cow for the pear-shaped. Swine for those of less stature. Not a big fan of the printed jean since most seem to make women look more wide-hipped…although I do kind of like the J.Brand pair…
I tried on some ikat print jeans last week and hoo boy. Not good at all. For me the issue isn’t my legs, which are okay, but my rear end. My ass does not need to be swathed in print.
I’m with you on the hooves! Maybe, maybe, I can do printed jean (although I probably won’t), but it has to be straight leg, not legging or skinny.
I was just going to say that I also think the skinny style doesn’t go with prints. I think a bootcut would look better in most of these. Sausage + print = too much!! Whereas, print + flattering fit might just add up to something.
I have a rule: if it doesn’t look good on the model, it definitely won’t look good on me. Saves me a lot of time.
Also, why put the ombre at the bottom?
I can’t think of another trend from 1985 that I love as much as printed denim, which is unusual, since I am typically of the “if you participated in the trend the first time around, you shouldn’t participate the second” ilk. Still, I can’t help myself. If loving you is wrong, printed denim, I don’t wanna be right. Those ombre fades? Are BADASS.
Seriously! I had Guess jeans in 1986 that were plaid print. I wore them to shreds and I felt so awesome. The printed jeans trend reminds me of that time and I’m not sure if I need to go there again… but I am definitely tempted!
yes, hooves! don’t do it!
I dig the ombre jeans! Not such a fan of the printed denim.
I can’t help it, I love the J Brands. Takes me back to bad metal shows, my weak spot!
printed jeans look good on a 98 pd 6ft tall 19 year old…what’s next? acid washed…ugh.
I LOVE the Rag & Bone ombre but I’m with Alexis and definitely won’t buy a legging and probably won’t buy a skinny. I wish the legging super skinny trend would end. I just bought a pair of burgundy coated skinny jeans and am debating whether to return them. I didn’t like the creasing on my usual size and was afraid that they’d stretch. The sales people talked me into sizing down. What size would you have taken?
I’m sorta on-board with the higher-waisted jeans since I’m beginning to view them as a stomach-flattening device! No matter what I do (and to be honest, that would be Not Very Much) my stomach spills over the top of my lower-waisted jeans in such a way that it requires careful disguising by loose tops.
I would look like a whale in those printed jeans. I didn’t wear them the first time they came out. I couldn’t have worn them 20 pounds ago. I refuse to do high waited jeans. They never fit me right. I have a butt and a smaller waist. The waist on those jeans were usually too loose on me.
Ditto. And I also subscribe to the no repeating trends if you participated the first time rule that merciblahblah notes above.
The cusp of the 21st century was blighted by the exposed muffin belly thing and just when you thought it was safe to go back into the changing room, this aesthetic plague of
“skinny” jeans showed up to soil our retinas with un-flattery. Upping the ante with prints just adds insult to injury. These things look terrible on everyone — every human on earth. Period. Please make them stop.
I am with Kate on high waisted jeans. Unless your stomach is model-flat, low rise jeans are so uncomfortable. I honestly don’t see why anyone likes them. Explain?
Now this is not to say I favor super-high rise, “mom jeans” but mid to high rise looks better on those of us who are not 5′ 11′ talll and have skinny legs.
Yeah, the hooves comment pretty much cinched it for me too! Moo…
I’m with Sallie T! I’ve just got to the point where I like myself in jeans. I favor the slouchy “boyfriend” look but do wear some slim-cut w/o wanting to hide…as for the hood-look, YES it does! Sort of a Greek-mythological-creature vibe!
sorry, meant “hoof”-look!
Oh those Cheap Monday jeans are too high! If you have overhang in lower rise jeans, you need to size up. Not that mine are so low my bum is showing, but two or so inches below the belly button is so much more flattering. I just dug up a photo of myself in 1989 wearing Gap high-waisted baggy TAPERED jeans, and I wanted to cry. I was SO SKINNY and it was such a WASTE.
J Brand: Giving new meaning to the phrase “tree trunk legs”
To me, high rise means the natural waist (uncomfortable and unflattering). If it’s a bit below the bellybutton but above the bottom of the poof of flab that most women have, I count that as a mid-rise (can look good on everyone — it’s very important to have the rise come *over* the bottom of the poof – if it doesn’t, that’s when you get a muffintop. It doesn’t have to cover the whole poof, imho. It just kind of holds it up/in a little bit.)
I have yet to see a low-rise look good on *anyone.* Even the thinnest person would look better in pants that at least imply that she might have a waist. And have you noticed that waists are disappearing in fashion? I think it might have to do with all the plastics we eat. It is messing up hormones on both sexes. Fortunately, I think people are starting to catch on.