“As much as I’ve investigated this, I can’t say I understand the origin of the skinny jean. Why, of many candidates for fashion statements, did it become ubiquitous?” -Mark Greiff.
If you are person who uses the internet and has even the slightest interest of fashion, you’ve seen the scourge that is skinny jean hating street interviews pop up on your FYP. Every video has the same format: some fashionably-dressed person holding a mic stands next to an equally trendy person, usually on a street corner in NYC or London. The interviewer then the poses the question “what is your least favorite fashion trend?” or something of a similar variety before shoving the mic into the face of their subject. Their reply is almost always the same: “skinny jeans. I hate skinny jeans.”
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| ~average fAsHUn person circa 2020~ |
As someone in their adolescence during the late ‘00s to early ‘10s, the hate is understandable. Skinny jeans were mandatory during this era; to wear a baggy fit was essentially to label yourself as an outcast. Everyone from the preppy kids to the hipsters exclusively wore skin-tight, leg-hugging jeans, usually in a dark wash. They were oversaturated.
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| This was what my mom called “the uniform” when I was in middle school: dark wash skinny jeans tucked into uggs, preferably paired with a (north face) sweatshirt |
By the end of the ‘10s, I think society was more than ready for the rule of the skinny jean to end. So, when the pandemic hit and everyone entered lockdown, baggy jeans quickly became just as ubiquitous as skinny jeans back in their prime. And as people were staying home and sharing their style on tiktok, more people started openly hating on skinny jeans as if they hadn’t just recently gotten rid of them.
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| Prime example of a 2020 alt fit, which is as far away from skinny jeans as you can get |
I will confess that I, too, used to be a skinny jean hater. I only wore them to fit in with the popular girls at school, and once I developed a sense of independence, I started wearing looser fitting mom jeans. For a while, skinny jeans were basically synonymous with the discomfort of middle school and trying to fit into a mold that you don’t quite fit. Wearing baggier jeans made me feel like an individual, someone with a unique sense of style, different from their suburban peers.
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| I can now see that mom jeans were not that different than skinny jeans. They certainly FELT different in the moment, however. |
Looking back now, I have a little more compassion for my middle school self and a lot more fondness for those so-called awkward years, which has made me re-evaluate my feelings. I didn’t hate skinny jeans—I just hated myself. And, if only out of nostalgia, I’ve been feeling a tug lately to return to my skinny jean origins despite defining my style against them for some time—and if my tiktok feed is any indication, I know I’m not the only one.
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| Fits from @strawb3rry.x0 on tiktok who is currently leading the skinny jean revival |
Since the pendulum is now starting to swing back towards skinny jeans, I spent quite a chunk of time sifting through lookbook.nu and various street style blogs on the web archive to capture the very best ‘00s skinny jean fits in all their persuasions—hipster, club kid, scene and twee-adjacent representation is all here. I firmly believe that there is a skinny jean for everyone, so long as you’re open enough to try new things, and I hope these photos will inspire some new skinny jean styling pursuits:
All photos click through to source links.
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| …or Freja Beha Ericsson for that matter |
