Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one on this
particular quest. What is it about jeans that makes them so hard to shop
for? I will never know. What I DO know, however, is that I HAD the
perfect jeans. Oh yes I did. They were from Dorothy Perkins, of all
places, they cost me about £20, and I must have worn them a few hundred
times over the years they were in rotation in my wardrobe. Seriously,
those jeans MORE than paid for themselves.
The problem with all of this
wearing-of-the-jeans, though, is that eventually those jeans wore right
out, and not in a charming, perfectly-worn-in kind of way either, but in
an “if I wear these in public, people will probably hand me their spare
change to buy some new clothes with” kind of way. So they had to be
reluctantly retired, and the search for the New Perfect Jeans commenced:
a search which has so far proved fruitless. Or jean-less, rather. And
oh, there have been lots of jeans. But none of them have been PERFECT.
There are two main reasons for this:
1. Sizing: GAH.
When it comes to dresses, skirts, tops,
trousers – anything that isn’t a pair of jeans, basically – I can pretty
reliably pick out my size and know it’ll fit – or will fit as well as anything
ever fits, anyway. With jeans, though (I’ve already typed the word
“jeans” so many times in this post that it’s become completely
meaningless to me. jeansjeansjeans. Jeans.), I seem to be between sizes. My usual size, i.e. the one I wear in all of those other
items of clothing, will generally give me a muffin top in jeans. And no
one loves a muffin top, do they? The size up, however, will often be so
large I’ll feel like I’m wearing harem pants, and if you’ve ever read The Fashion Police, you’ll know aaaaalll about my burning hatred of harem pants. GOD.
2. Being super-fussy: DOUBLE GAH.
So, yes, I’m fussy. Like, REALLY fussy. No,
fussier than that. In order for a pair of jeans to be deemed Perfect
Jeans, you see, they must fulfil a number of criteria. They must be:
a) The perfect length
Now, I know you can have jeans altered. I
know this. I’ve even done it, plenty of times. But I never really like
the way jeans look when they’ve been altered: I want them to fit
perfectly, straight off the rack, and when you’re my height, that never,
ever happens. The only time I can find jeans that are the right length
are if they’re from a petite range, or designed to be cropped on
“normal” people, and those kind of ranges tend to be really limited in
terms of cut and colour. Like, any given brand will offer a
kazillionty-one different washes and cuts on their regular length jeans,
but only two in the petite range, and neither of those will fulfil my
other requirements, which include…
b) Skinny, but not super-skinny
I LOVE skinny jeans. Love them. I know this
isn’t a popular point of view, but I hope they never go out of style.
Lately, though, I’ve been finding it almost impossible to find skinny
jeans that aren’t super-skinny. I’m not sure if the problem is
with the jeans or with my legs, but even jeans which are too big in the
waist will normally fit like leggings on the calves, and I HATE that. I
want drainpipe, not Saran wrap. And can I find it? Nope: no more than I
can find…
c) The perfect mid-blue wash
I know lots of people love dark wash jeans,
because they like the fact that they can be “dressed up”. Not me. For
me, the beauty of jeans is that they’re casual. If I’m going somewhere
“dressy”, I’m not going to be wearing jeans, and when I am
wearing jeans, I want them to be that classic, mid-blue: not too dark,
not too light, and absolutely no whiskering/distressing/deliberate
creasing or ripping. Seriously, if I want to look like my jeans are
falling apart, I’ll just keep wearing those ancient Dorothy Perkins
ones, and forget all about the search for the Perfect Jeans, you know?
Which brings me – AT LAST, I hear you say –
to the jeans in these photos. These jeans fulfil only two of
my requirements: they’re the right shade, and the right cut, but as you
can see from the photos, even although they were sold as “ankle” jeans,
they’re still long enough that I have to tuck or roll them to avoid that
“concertina” effect on the leg. (I HATE THAT.) What you CAN’T see from
the photos, however (and for that, I would like to just take a brief
moment to salute the peplum top, and it’s belly-hiding properties. I
hope IT never goes out of style either, and if it does, I’m going to
just keep wearing it anyway…) is that in the battle between muffin-top
and harem-pant, I decided to err on the side of harem-pant (I KNOW!) and
sized up. And the result of that is that as soon as I I start walking,
these jeans start a-slidin’, and within a very short space of time,
they’ll have inched their way down to the point where they not only look
horrendous, but where I have to do this awkward kind of mincing walk,
where I take a few steps then stop to pull the jeans up, then take a few
steps and stop to pull the jeans up, and so on and so forth.
Yes, you’re right, I could wear a belt. I have thought of that, and sometimes that’s exactly what I do. On the day these photos were taken, though, I didn’t need to wear a belt, because I was wearing THIS instead:
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