Thursday, June 14, 2007

Skinny Pants

While Livingdeb is coming to grips with stylish, low-waisted pants (in which I bet she looked great, even if she felt conspicuously thighed, because a modestly low-waisted pair of pants with a bit of flare is just so much more flattering than the old style stuff we used to wear), today I finally wore a pair of skinny capri pants I bought at Our Favorite Store/The Other Talbots last summer. This morning, I had originally put on an old, comfortable pair of khakis, but they were such a fashion disaster (pleats, I tell you!) I could not really bear to wear them again. Ever. My capri pants are not quite as extreme as Audrey Hepburn's famous skinny pants, but they are rather skinny (and fortunately, have a good deal of stretch to them). I was a little uncertain about them, but a woman at work I hadn't seen in a while said to me in the hall, "Hey, you're looking skinny." I told her that this is an optical illusion of the pants and I now wish I had a pair in every color. I really had expected that only truly skinny girls could wear skinny pants, but I've changed my mind.

Too bad that it's easy to make big clown pants, but much more of a challenge to make side-zip, darted, flattering skinny pants. With my newfound mad sewing skillz (hah), I am eager to try slimming up my clown pants pattern. (For some reason, I find screwing around and floundering at the sewing machine less off-putting than following an actual damn pattern, even though it's more work and the results are surely not as good.)

4 comments:

Tam said...

Your link to old-style stuff was a still from the SNL spoof ad "Mom Jeans", which I love. You can see the whole ad here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kuEtjHHHY

Sally said...

Nice one. These might be the ultimate Mom Jeans:

http://www.blair.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&langId=-1&categoryId=100627&pcats=87616,87650,100627&productId=27203

My mom and I have had an agreement for a very long time now that I have the right to take away any Donnkenny old lady styled shirts with a ribbed bottom band that she might try to buy (or have bought) as she gets senile and completely loses her fashion sense.

Anonymous said...

I am certainly glad that I don't have any Mom jeans left for you to take away.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Tam, I suddenly feel the urge to measure my zippers. The Mom Jeans don't look weird or creepy or funny to me, and the butts of the Moms all look good to me.

I'm afraid I like Mom Jeans. I even like pleats, although I no longer buy them because my sister basically begged me not to. I don't take hints, but I do comprehend begging. At least I don't like the elasticized waists of the ultimate Mom Jeans. I'm glad there's a limit to my archaic tastes.

So I'm not wearing grandma pants. Those are the ones that are 100% polyester, with an elasticized waistband and with a line of sewing along the creases to keep them crisp. Those grandmas were so happy to finally quit ironing. And they wore coordinating knit tops with them.

And I'm not wearing grampa pants. Those are the ones were grampa has a big belly and has decided that the pants have to come to the top of the belly, no matter how high that is.

Those Mom Jeans are really just jeans from the 'eighties, aren't they?

Okay, the zippers of the pants I like are about 6 inches long, and the waist is right at my belly button (covering it). The zipper of my stylish pants is about 5 inches long. Weird. It feels so much shorter.