An ode to jeans...

I've succumbed to blatant commercialism. Yesterday, I bought a pair of jeans for $100. But it (they) feels so good! Ha. : )

You have to understand that for a period of time in my early teens all I cared about, clothing-wise, was the brand name on the tag. Guess, Coca-cola (remember those shirts?), Espirit, B.U.M. Equipment, etc. Then I grew up a little into my later teens and into the grunge era, where nobody cared about the brand, just about how much flannel one human being could possibly wear at any given time.

Once I was out of college, my casual wear drifted toward the inexpensive Old Navy-type stuff, where fit might not have been great but the style was cute and you couldn't beat the price. Only in recent years have I become more concerned about what I look like in those clothes. The old metabolism isn't quite what it used to be, and wearing big sloppy stuff no longer looks cute and carefree, but sort of blah and making me looking bigger than I actually am, something I don't need help with. Jeans that are in fashion no longer fit my shape correctly and the person who brought about the invention of low-rise should either be blessed or condemned to one of the lower circles of hell.

Everyone looked pretty much the same in those high-waisted jeans. It's impossible not to have some kind of pooch in front when it's behind this wall of unforgiving denim. But with low-rise, suddenly those with flat bellies were showing them off and the rest of us...well, me, at least, I was hiding behind "mid-rise" jeans that weren't altogether fashionable or flattering.

Then I saw this show (Oprah had the "What Not to Wear" girls on one night) about how little things like the length of the zipper, the size and placement of the pockets on the back, the cut of the legs, all go toward making you look good or bad in jeans. If you don't look good in your jeans, it may not be because you're hideously malformed. It may simply be that you have the wrong cut of jeans.

So, I promptly went out and found a pair of jeans that I loved from Ann Taylor Loft. Low rise (over which I wear a longer shirt so the front pooch does not show), small pockets that were low on the butt, and legs that were tight through the thigh but loose around the calves and ankles. (I do not look good in the "skinny" jeans, plus whenever I try them on, I get horrible post-traumatic flashbacks to highschool and the early nineties when we used to roll up the bottoms of our skinny jeans to make them even tighter at the ankle...ugh!) And this beautiful find was only $28 on the sales rack! Woohoo! I should have bought multiple pairs...but I didn't.

Now, a year later, the ATL jeans are still holding up well, but they're my only pair. For Christmas, from my husband, I get a cool new pair of jeans but they're the "new" looking kind. Very dark denim. This is fine for when you're dressing up a little but these are not casual jeans.

Yesterday, with my sister in town, we headed to Michigan Avenue for a shopping trip. I HATE shopping. But I discovered a Lucky Brand jeans store in one of the malls. Lucky is a brand name you've probably heard tossed around, like True Religion and Seven. I cannot afford True Religion and Seven, which often go at $200 or so for ONE pair of jeans. But these were less expensive and they are AWESOME.

Already faded and soft (how do they do that?), they are perfect right off the shelf. Short zipper, low rise in the front but higher in the back (so as to avoid the oh-so-attractive "butt crack" look), tight yet stretchy through the thigh and loose around the calves and ankles. And little pockets placed low on the back side, so it looks like I might actually have a butt rather than legs connected straight to my rib cage.

And yes, they were ridiculously expensive, so much so that I'm almost afraid to wear them. But I have decided that at the ripe old age of 31, there are some things worth splurging on. A good hair cut and good jeans are definitely two of them!