Skinny Jeans

This is an amusing video I found on Yahoo news about a new men’s Levi’s jeans cut called the Ex-Girlfriend. The reporter in the video flippantly mocks the new fit and the men who would choose to wear them. I found it quite funny that discussion of the jeans was included in an “odd news” segment. When you consider some of the ensembles seen on high-fashion runways or the outfits worn by celebrities such as Lady GaGa or Helena Bonham Carter, super-skinny jeans are positively tame in the odd fashions department.

Skinny pants for men really aren’t a new phenomenon. In a cursory Google search of men’s fashions in the 1700s and 1800s, you can find multiple examples of “skinny” breeches. The image to the left, for example, is from 1795, and the man’s breeches look at least as tight as the “odd” Ex-Girlfriend jean. So, to lessen the “odd” factor, perhaps we should just think of the skinny jeans fit as an update on antique men’s breeches fashions.

I can’t help but wonder if the writers of this video segment have been hiding under a rock for the past several years. Skinny jeans have been cropping up in men’s fashions for quite a while. I remember seeing guys walking around my high school in skinny cuts (thus my amazement both at this being considered newsworthy and the “odd” label). Now if only the bulbous trunk hose of the Renaissance would come back into fashion, then they would really have a story . . .