What’s the skinny on leg-coverings this season? From leggings to cigarette pants to jeans, it’s just that: Skinny is in.
After years of wide-leg, boyfriend or boot-cut styles, designers and fashionistas have slimmed down the silhouettes for spring and fall, making more body-conscious fits the trendiest of new fashion trends.
“If you want a pair of bootleg jeans, buy them now, because skinny jeans are replacing them at jeans shops across the country,” says Nicole Phelps, executive editor of Style.com.
By most definitions, “skinny pants” are those that fit the leg snugly and either have a straight leg with no flare at the hem or actually taper near the ankle. Leggings are a variation of the look but tend to be cropped and made of a thinner material.
Think Jennifer Beals in “Flashdance.” In fact, skinny jeans and leggings were last popular about the time Beals was – in the 1980s.
“With designers reviving different elements of that decade, from pouf skirts to nipped and belted waists, it was only a matter of time before skinny jeans and leggings returned,” Phelps says.
And return they have.
According to eBay’s Marketplace Research Pro, which tracks the purchasing behavior of 191 million registered eBay users, sales of leggings on eBay increased by 54.5 percent between April 4 and May 1.
“It’s a catching trend,” says Krystal Krpan, a high school senior who was shopping recently for beach clothes at American Eagle Outfitters in Columbia, Md. “There are a lot of girls in my school wearing them.”
Although the trend toward snug leg coverings is catching on slowly among consumers, the appearance of the trend on runways seemed to pop out of nowhere.
One day it was all about wide legs and flares, the next, it seemed, leggings and skinny pants were ubiquitous.
“I think it helped when celebrities started wearing them,” says eBay style director Constance White. Some of the most fashion-forward of the celebrity set, such as Sienna Miller, Kate Hudson, Carmen Electra and Kate Moss, have been seen out and about wearing the skinniest of skinny jeans and leggings. Nicky Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and even curvier stars Angelina Jolie and Mariah Carey have embraced the new slimmer look.
“When they were just on runways and in the sort of sub-culture, you couldn’t even find them,” says White, who had to go to Sweden to find a pair of skinny jeans she loved. “It’s only now that you’ve started to be able to buy them.”
Now, even the most mainstream of jeans shops, the Gap, sells two styles of skinny jeans for summer.
Gap style expert Sean Krebs says the look – even though it is on the cutting edges of fashion – is still very “all-American.” “I don’t think the boot cut is ever going to go away completely,” Krebs says. “It’s a very flattering silhouette and a very flattering fit for a lot of different body types. But this is a more fashion-forward customer who wants the skinny leg, for sure.” In Europe, the skinnier styles already have caught on in a big way.
“At least where I was in Sweden, in the city, they’re all the rage. They have already been embraced by all body types,” White said.
“You don’t just see the size 4, 25-year-old in them. You see the woman with hips, 35 and 45, poured into these jeans. And they look cute.”
Some women may find that idea hard to believe. Any fashion trend with the word “skinny” in it must be solely for skinny women, they think.
Wrong, style experts say.
“Let us not forget the reason the legging and the T-shirt was so popular before,” says White. “You just put the big T-shirt on over the skinny leggings, and that hid a multitude of sins, and it was so comfortable.”
Some experts still disagree.
“Many, many women will not be able to wear these pants,” says Dianne M. Daniels, a certified member of the Association of Image Consultants International. “A woman with a more pear-shaped figure won’t be as successful in skinny-cut jeans because they will emphasize the difference in her hip proportion as compared to the rest of her body. That can be a very unflattering look. A woman with a straighter figure can wear skinny jeans and/or leggings more successfully.”
It is true that, so far, mostly trendsetting teens have been brave enough to wear leggings – they love them with cut-off denim skirts and ballerina flats.
But the look is appropriate on older women, as well, White says. It just has to be in a more polished style.
With the demand growing, some manufacturers, such as British designer Suzy Radcliffe, have worked to make the skinny look even more mature-woman-appropriate.
Radcliffe has increased the popularity of her $200 Radcliffe Jeans – which fly off the shelves at fashion hotspots Barney’s and Fred Segal – by raising the waists 3 inches in the back (as tight legs pull the waists down), and reducing the tightness at the ankle to avoid making hips look bigger.
