In high school, I wore denim Bermuda-length shorts and wheat jeans. In college, I wore bell bottom hip huggers – sometimes hemmed with a fancy patterned trim – and cut offs.
When I was skinny in my twenties, I wore boy jeans.
I always had jeans for casual, weekend wear when I was working full time. But since I made my way out of corporate, jeans have been my uniform.
Somewhere along the line, I started getting all my jeans from LL Bean. They fit well, wore well, and they come in medium tall length, which used to be a bigger deal before I shrunk an inch, but which is still nice.
I wear a lot of jeans.
In the winter, I pretty much wear jeans or jean-style cords every day.
In the summer, I wear lightweight jeans on occasion, but it’s mostly linen pants or some sort of khaki.
But spring and fall, it’s all jeans, all the time.
I probably have 10 pairs of jeans, a combo of dark blue, washed blue, and black. A combo of straight leg and boot cut. I like the ones with a bit of stretch something-or-other in them. (Just, as the old-time Modess ads used to say…Because.)
The worn out-ish jeans, I wear when I’m working in the kitchen at St. Francis House.
The really worn out-ish jeans – and there’s a few pairs of them in the mix – are going into the recycle bag. (Note: you can bring clean used clothing that’s not good enough to donate into an H&M and they’ll take care of recycling.)
The others I just plain wear.
Day in, day out, I just plain wear jeans.
I will give LL Bean one more try, but I may be in the market for a new provider.
I recently ordered two pairs – same style, different colors. The dark blues were baggy in the thighs, and the material was stiff and scratchy. I wrote to LL Bean, and they said the material hadn’t changed. Maybe the material didn’t, but the finish sure did. After a couple of washings, back they went.
The black pair fit well, and while the material was a tiny bit stiff and scratchy, they’re softening up after a couple of washings.
I’m in no dire need for more jeans at the mo’, but when I am I may be looking for a new provider. Recommendations welcome.
Anyway, because I am such a jeans aficionado, I never noticed that jeans had gone a bit out of fashion, replaced, apparently by yoga pants.
Hmmmmm.
But they’re making a comeback.
In all, shoppers bought 364 million pairs of women’s jeans last year, a 5 percent increase from the year before, according to newly released data from market research firm NPD Group, which analyzed jeans sales between February 2018 and February 2019.
“Consumers are finally starting to show interest in jeans again,” said Marshal Cohen, an adviser for NPD. “The fact that we’re seeing more relaxed fits, more comfortable styles, is what’s getting people to say, ‘Okay, I have a reason to buy jeans again.’"
After four straight years of decline, the U.S. denim market grew 2.2 percent to $16.7 billion last year, according to Euromonitor. (Source: Washington Post)
According to the article, mom jeans are leading the comeback. Talk about back to the future.
Anyway, I’m not now, never have been, and never will be a mom, so, no thanks. (And I trust my sisters to let me know if I slip up and slip into something a bit mom-ish.)
This reminds me of some non-jeans I bought years ago: a pair of blue and white striped summer pants from Land’s End.
I went back and forth in my mind whether they were stylin’, or completely fuddy duddy. Then I wore them out to Worcester, where my Aunt Margaret was visiting my mother. This was quite a ways back. I’m guessing that, at that point, my aunt would have been 70ish (i.e., my current age) and my mother would have been 60ish.
When I walked in the door, Peg and Liz couldn’t get over how much they loved those pants. They were sharp, smart, really attractive, I’d wear those.
Well, once the old gals weighed in on them, I was no longer so interested in wearing those. Into the donation bag those went.
Definitely the pants equivalent of mom jeans…
There’s another reason for the resurgence in jeans, one I find more plausible.
Jeans are becoming more comfortable, too, as companies use elastic and materials with stretch to win over legging-loving shoppers.
I also learned that the high-priced jeans are no longer as popular as they once were, other than with me. Those who monitor the markets aren’t “seeing $300-plus denim selling the way it used to.”
I recently saw a pair of $300-plus jeans come into the clothing room at St. Francis House.
I can’t remember the brand name – something Japanese - but someone donated them and I pulled them out of the sorting bin.
They were a very small man’s size, and had a strip of red material with gold dragons crawling up the back legs. We laughed about them, but when I got home, I looked them up and saw that they retailed for about $300. And the next time I was in the clothing room, they were gone.
Anyway, the world is apparently “starting to cycle back into jeans.”
Mom jeans aside, I’m pretty fashion forward here. “Starting to cycle back into jeans”? Harrumph! I never left.
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