What Is The Deal With Skinny Jeans?

What is the deal with skinny jeans?

Okay, I totally get that they look amazing on the skinny people, and a lot of not so skinny people are completely comfortable in skinny jeans. I have zero issue with that, truly. If you are comfortable in your clothes, freakin’ rock it, who cares what the fashion world says.

But what about those of us who aren’t comfortable in skinny jeans and can’t find anything else to drape ourselves in? I am a confident gal who carries my insulation with me. Yep, I have an hourglass figure that measures 5 hours at a shot. I love who I am, and the only issues I have with my body stem from a lack of stamina due to asthma that went undiagnosed and untreated for 35 year, and a knee that lacks strength and flexibility after a bad fall. Before the fall, I had muscle tone…. glutes of steel, and I could hit first position and plie till my butt hit my heels. I want to get back to that.

Trouble is, getting back to that means finding clothes that move like that, and allow me to move. I go to the store and the only thing I can find are skinny jeans.

Let me clarify… I am not a girly girl. I am not a hipster. I am a late thirties woman who is most comfortable in a pair of relaxed fit jeans and a layered turtleneck and flannel over my Timbs. That’s me in my happy place. Remember that 5 hour glass? That pretty much means that men’s jeans aren’t going to actually fit my waist to hip ratio, so my choices are to either buy too big in mens and keep hiking up my drawers every time I move or buy something out of the women’s department that have the right ratio but I look like Ross Gellar in leather trying to get in and out of.

This problem gets bigger when you think in terms of climate. I live in either one of two extremes, depending on how my world is turning at the time. My home is an island in the north Atlantic. Blizzards, icebergs, ice floe and the like. I love it. I could not be happier than when I am home in the snow and ice. Skinny jeans, however, are by necessity, too thin to keep anybody warm, and too tight to wear wool underwear.

My other place of residence is with my family in the Mojave Desert. First things first, I am not built for those temperatures even when I am skinny. Seriously, I know people who love the desert with a passion… I am related to them… and I think they are nuts, but I love them anyhow. The thing is, the way to stay cool in the desert is air flow. Remember the dudes in the flowing black sheets in The Mummy? Those loose layers blocked the direct heat from the sun and allowed air to move around near the skin, keeping the body temperature down. Skinny jeans so very fail at this. Not only do they not allow air to flow, but what sweating the body does is instantly absorbed by the material. For those who forgot high school biology, sweat cools us when it is evaporated, not when it is absorbed. So now our bodies’ self cooling system is compromised and we are in damp denim which then proceeds to chafe.

It doesn’t help that I invariably end up in the north in the winter and the south in the summer. Yep, this snowbird read the map wrong.

Can’t we just go back to a variety of styles of jeans? So that everybody can be comfortable, instead of just a handful? Please? ‘Cause, I am willing to learn to sew, but pants are hard, denim is harder, and that hour glass figure of mine won’t be turning back the time anytime soon.