Articles

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JUNE 17, 2006

A few weeks ago my best friend, on her way back to Los Angeles from London, via New York, came into town with a mission: to buy skinny jeans. "Everyone in London is wearing them," she hissed over her plate of ravioli at Fred's, the ninth floor restaurant in Barneys. "I felt so stupid in my boot cuts."

So after lunch we took the elevator down one floor and made a beeline for the denim display. My friend plucked half a dozen pairs off the tables and shelves and charged into one of the dressing rooms. A couple of minutes later she emerged and took a long look in the full-length mirror near the entrance of the changing rooms.

"These are horrible," she whispered, pressing in the sides of her child-bearing hips (she gave birth seven months ago and is still working off the baby weight) and biting back tears.

They may be the hottest thing in designer denim, adopted by the cutting edge a year ago and now filtering down to the rest of the world, but the skinny jean is a complicated real-life proposition.

Unlike the flare and the boot cut, which balance a thicker thigh or wider hip with extra volume at the lower leg, the tapered ankle of the skinny jean only highlights those figure flaws. Even ultra-slim novelist Plum Sykes urges caution. The jeans, she says, "can only be worn by extraordinary British fashion icons with a rock-and-roll attitude. (They) look dreadful on all other women".

Still, premium denim designers insist the trend is selling big and is here to stay.

Last autumn, Ernest Sewn introduced its skinny tapered-leg jean, called Harlan, and is offering the silhouette in three additional washes. It's been so successful that for next autumn, Scott Morrison, Earnest Sewn's president and designer says, the company has two more styles featuring an ankle zip and an even slimmer-leg jean with a higher rise.

Meanwhile, Seven for All Mankind is expanding their selection of tapered jeans with new washes and ankle zips, and Paris-based Notify has developed a two-wayor "bi-stretch" for addedcomfort.

Buyers are bullish on the skinny, too. Jacques Keledjian, chief executive and owner of Intermix, a chain of fashion-forward boutiques in the US, says the 10-inch-rise skinny black jean from J Brand has been "flying off the racks".

And Barneys women's denim buyer Grace Kang says the store has sold over 10,000 pairs of skinny jeans since last autumn.

Of course, it makes sense that after years of pushing low-rise and boot-cut, denim manufacturers and retailers would advocate a completely new silhouette to keep people interested - and buying. As Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for NPD Group, a US-based market research firm, says: "Designers are offering skinny leg jeans this season for change. Without style change, the consumer has little to motivate them to purchase new." Cohen also estimates that the skinny jean, because it appeals mainly to "the young and young at heart, with a figure to wear them," will reach only 16 per cent of customers.

James Shaffer, the designer behind the LA-based Blue Tattoo fashion line, says skinny jeans account for only 20 per cent of his denim production."I can say from doing trade shows and discussing with stores, there's an apprehension because it's a hard fit on a lot of women. You basically have to be long and lean," says Shaffer.

As Notify's owner and designer Maurice Ohayon points out: "In the 1950s the slim fits were glamorous and sexy, emphasising the woman's body. In the 1980s, the skinny fits were linked to the punk attitude. Today, the slim silhouette creates a perfect androgynous look and is linked to a masculine attitude rather than a sexy one."
According to London-based Jennifer Kersis, the former managing director of fashion line Jasmine di Milo and head of NetJets's UK arm, she's spent the last nine months practicallyliving in her drainpipe jeans from H&M, but a few weeks ago decided the silhouette "wasn't a novelty" and invested in tapered leg pairs from Paige Premium Denim and Imitation of Christ.

Her favourite thing about them? They show off her Alaia ankle boots. "A boot cut hangs over and hides a beautiful shoe, which is a bit of a shame," observes Kersis.

In fact, choosing the right shoe seems to be the key to wearing the skinny jean well. Boy-shaped types can pull them off with flats, but everyone else is better off pairing them with heels or even more flattering, tucking them into tall boots.

"A curvy girl should wear them with slouchy boots and a long tunic," says Kang. Or she could go for a pair of Radcliffe Denim's skinny stretch jeans in black. UK-based designer Suzy Radcliffe cuts her skinnys straight from the knee so they're narrow over the calf but not tight around the ankle, avoiding the hip-widening effect.
Plus, says Radcliffe, "with skinny jeans, darker colours are more flattering because they make the leg look much slimmer."

Variations on the trend aside, Karen Quinn, the author of bestseller The Ivy Chronicles and the soon-to-be-released Wife in the Fast Lane, has her own reason for embracing the skinny jean. "Getting them on and off is a workout in itself."