Do you buy your jeans tight-fitting?

[Anonymous]

are you serious about boden, pp? i bought the lovely lavender moleskin pants and they are, like, falling off of me, but i've already had them altered and washed them once or twice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with most of what the PP said. Thank the good lord that the mid-rise has finally made its return, and the insanity is starting to stop. Some things are best left between you and your gynecologist.

But, I just bought two pairs of jeans last night, and how tight is tight supposed to be? I bought them as tight as I would be comfortable walking out of the store and into the street with them on. I was not willing to buy a pair that, while I was able to squeeze into them, looked a bit obscene to me.

Dry clean? Really? Are you serious? Of course you are, I don't mean to belittle what you said. It's just that this takes time and money that I had never considered spending on jeans before.

Finally, I am aghast that folks are willing to spend close (or upwards) of 200 bucks on jeans. Lucky Brand Jeans are fabulous as far as I am concerned, and you can get a pair for less than 100. I would love to get back into the Gap jeans I bought for 30 bucks 7 years ago, before anybody ever would have considered spending a dime more than that.

I know, trust me. I was shocked when she told me to dry clean them...don't shoot the messenger.
As to the price of jeans, a close friend put it in perspective. "You will spend over $100 on a fancy dress you'll wear once or twice and not on a pair of jeans you wear 4 times a week?"

[Anonymous]

Also, I can't tell you if they are too tight. If you can't breathe or sit down, yes.
You probably need someone you trust to look at them and give you an honest answer. When I tried these jeans on in DB, I kept saying, "are you SURE these aren't too tight?" And she kept reassuring me, "No, they will stretch."
When I got home, my DH was floored by how great the jeans looked.

[Anonymous]

I take your friend's point. I do.

Here's the thing: a fancy dress is one I'm going to wear someplace where I am likely to be honoring someone -- a wedding, a Bat Mitzvah, maybe a holiday party (not really honoring) -- but you know -- part of the reason for getting decked out is to signal to the person who invited you that you feel they are worthy of getting decked out for. And the other piece of it is that these are gatherings where lots of people are going to see you -- whether it be family or old friends you may not like so much anymore or your ex-boyfriend who you want to feel sorry for sleeping with your best friend 10 years ago -- there are reasons why we like to look hot at these galas, and so when spend the money. That, or maybe your boyfriend/husband wants to take you someplace really special and you want to wow him. You get the idea.

But jeans are the sine qua non of casual. They're supposed to be -- or at least used to be -- one step up from sweats. Even just 10 years ago, jeans were just jeans. None of these fancy brands even existed. Loose jeans that looked decades old were seen as hip and even sexy. No one worried about "baggy butt" and we didn't have 7 different leg lengths and -- I think you know what I mean. When I wanted a pair of jeans I went to Levis or the Gap and I bought them for 30 bucks and I didn't really think much more about it. Except for the brief time when Guess jeans were all the rage. I did have a few pairs of those back in the day and they were more expensive. But, like lots of trends, they passed.

Now some people are paying up to 300 for blue jeans. And we're getting professionally fitted and we're hemming them and now I guess I'm going to have to think about dry cleaning them. I've been swept up by it too, to an extent, though like I said, Lucky Brand is my limit, and I absolutely refuse to hem. I hate the look of hemmed jeans -- they don't look authentic to me. I want the stitching on the bottom of my jeans intact.

What I'm trying to say is that at this point our jeans have been elevated to a kind of dress pant. So what do we wear when we want to wear the jeans of old? Nothing. We can't wear our jeans around the house or get them dirty like we used to -- we've invested too much in them. That's why I think so many women are walking around in yoga or sweat pants when they just want to do errands and be comfortable. Ten years ago they would have worn their $30.00 jeans without a thought. But now, we've just made it too complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, I can't tell you if they are too tight. If you can't breathe or sit down, yes.
You probably need someone you trust to look at them and give you an honest answer. When I tried these jeans on in DB, I kept saying, "are you SURE these aren't too tight?" And she kept reassuring me, "No, they will stretch."
When I got home, my DH was floored by how great the jeans looked.

Lucky Brand Jeans poster here. You know, that's the most important thing. It really is. It may even be worth the money. My husband liked my jeans, too. And that was the most important thing to me also.