From Staple to Statement – The skinny jean is back.
With the revival of 2010s indie sleaze and Tumblr boho on the runway, and Gen Z’s ever-present fixation on Y2K fashion, jeans are all the rage, and they’re slowly getting skinnier.
Vogue called skinny jeans ‘the most feared denim trend revival’ but with the nature of trend cycles, maybe you’ll be glad you kept your Topshop Joni jeans. From the 1930s to 50s jeans quickly rose to the height of men’s fashion as a fixture of pop culture and fashion, but with the introduction of Lady Levi’s in 1934 and Marilyn Monroe’s tight fit jeans in her film The Misfits they became a popular staple for women too, signalling liberation from years of flowing skirts and dresses.
Skinny jeans reached their golden era in 2005, pushing aside the straight and boot-cut styles from the 90s in favour of circulation cutting trousers, perpetuated by Dior Homme’s creative director Heidi Slimane blending the style with high fashion. Celebrities could be seen sporting these low rise skinnies throughout the 2000s, showing off belly button piercings and paired with glitzy crop tops. However, it’s easy to wonder if skinny jeans are simply a part of the ‘skinny revival’ that has been on the rise with the embrace of Ozempic and Kate Moss-esque heroin chic aesthetics. Dazed reported that plus-size runway representation dropped for all AW24 Fashion Week’s – a suggestion that fashion’s short affair with body diversity had come to an end.
With the rise of body positivity, which came alongside the 2017 Me Too movement and the global pandemic, looser styles of jeans were the new in. 2019 brought the VSCO girl, popularised for her mom jeans and scrunchies, a throwback to the 1980s, while 2021 gave us the ‘downtown girl’ with her Rory Gilmore sweaters and low-rise split flares.
But let’s face it, skinny jeans were never extinct, simply associated with Millennial fashion like the Christian Girl Autumn aesthetic, emojis and vicious side parts. In a recent TikTok, influencer Alix Earle shows herself casually styling a pair of dark blue skinny jeans, with knee-high black boots, a beige turtleneck sweater and a leather jacket. One commenter declared ‘and just like that skinny jeans are back’.
However, designers have consistently been showing us skinnier jeans on their runways since SS23 Prada, with Miu Miu debuting a classic low rise skinny blue jean in their AW24 collection, and Isabel Marant’s boho lace up skinnies from SS25, again extending an attempt to revive indie sleaze. Alexander McQueen exhibited the piece shown below in their AW24 collection, perhaps a comment on designers’ attempts to reconstruct Gen Z’s perception of skinny jeans as ‘cringe’ and for older generations, with the ties forcing the jeans tighter to the model’s legs.
Although by the end of February, @databutmakeitfashion reported a 50 per cent jump in searches for skinny jeans, wide leg jeans remain on top for the majority of the younger generation, preferring oversized baggy jeans to the confines of tight denim. For Gen X preppy girl style, consisting of super high rise colourful Zara jeans and Stanley cups, is preferred over the revival of Anastasia dip-brow, Topshop skinny white jeggings and Adidas jackets we knew in 2016.
Gen Z’s continued rebuke of skinny jeans is perhaps a sign of their social constraints, rejecting the lack of diversity they represent for a more liberated style of denim.
So, don’t worry, although we are seeing the return of the skinny jean, perhaps it is simply for high fashion only. Whether you’re a skinny jean hater or are ready for the end of the clean girl era and the beginning of messy chic, there’s denim for everyone.