Nancy Glowinski on (and in) JEANS

Why Is It So Hard to Find a Good Pair of Jeans?

It’s very satisfying to see that Gen Z has rejected skinny jeans, opting instead for loose fitting dungarees. Such a rejection of millennial style. And I’m right there with them. It’s like when grandchildren and grandparents gang up on the parents. Except that I don’t have children, so I also don’t have grandchildren.

But being able to return some of the disdain and condescension that younger generations have bestowed on me, a boomer, in solidarity with the youngest generation so far – the ones who will soon make Gen X and millennials feel old and useless in turn – is a wonderful kind of schadenfreude.

I never liked skinny jeans. Slender fit, not skintight, is okay. But unless you are a willowy 5’10” and weigh 120 pounds “skinny” jeans are unflattering on most people and only exaggerate short legs and lumpy shapes. Which is just about everyone.

Though I suppose what was even worse than skinny jeans were the super low waist, skinny-at-the-thighs flares of the late 1990s. Usually these were paired with kitten heel boots and thong underwear – something else I couldn’t stand and again I’m glad to see Gen Z embrace granny underpants. How many times have your eyes been scorched by seeing a tramp stamp – another 1990s emblem – deliberately peeking above low waisted jeans? I don’t care if you have tattoos or how much flesh you feel confident in showing even when you’re not at Lollapalooza but what I found annoying is that so many “edgy” people followed the trend and ended up being a stereotype. Anyway, those jeans were terrible and uncomfortable and gave everyone muffin tops.

Looser fitting jeans are back, but the trending-right-now more extreme wide legged version is almost as bad as its opposite. All that heavy fabric. Ugh. Not to mention if you get caught in the rain. I have no interest in being a human wick to gross street water. Even worse is the addition of elastic in the fabric. Anything with more than 1% elastic makes the fabric seem cheap and nothing at all like real denim. Don’t get me started on the atrocious invention that are jeggings.

100% cotton denim is hard to find and when you do find it a pair of plain old jeans can set you back more than a few hundred dollars. I finally found some good ones, albeit pricey, by Current Elliott but now they’ve discontinued their perfect fit boyfriend jeans that I liked so my search continues.

My favorite jeans of all time were Levi’s 501 shrink-to-fit, button-fly, all cotton jeans.

I don’t have hips, so men’s pants always fit me better.  In the late 1970s when I first moved to NY, all the gay guys wore them. It was the clone look. And as a result, they were easy to find – usually at army navy stores (which also sold colored bandanas to compliment the outfit and give a slight variation to the uniformity as well as a signal to your kink preference).

After about a year of wear the jeans started getting perfect. Not too new looking, faded in all the right spots. By the next year they got so pale and fragile you could poke a hole through the fabric with your finger, so you always had to have a few pairs on rotation.

They also made the best cut offs. Cut offs that could be worn in summer, obviously, but also in winter over a pair of black opaque tights and boots – preferably suede over-the-knee.

Unfortunately, the quality of Levi’s changed over the years, and they no longer seem to have the same consistency in cut and fit. Maybe it’s because they’re now made in places like Bangladesh or Guatemala where labor is cheap. And they seemed to have cut corners on the fabric too. It’s just not the same thick, stiff-as-cardboard denim. Even the stitching feels flimsy.

At least now with baggier jeans back in style, it should be easier to find a decent pair. I recently got a pair from Everlane – 100% cotton, straight leg, high waist and even a button fly! They’re okay. A bit too baggy in the thigh but not bad when worn with the cuff rolled up.

I should probably get a few more to keep in rotation and a few to store away for when skintight jeans dominate once again – or worse, those 1990s flares. By that time, judging by the way the fashion pendulum swings, I’ll be in my 80s and on my way out. But I’m not dead yet so for now these will work.

All photographs, illustrations and text copyright © Nancy Glowinski 2021