Bella Hadid puts forward a strong case for the return of skinny jeans
I’ve been a proponent of extremely baggy, ludicrously wide-legged jeans before the term “barrel jeans” ever even entered my lexicon.
Like every other teenager growing up in the 2010s, I coveted skinny jeans all throughout school, and the skinnier they were, the closer to cutting off circulation to the bottom half of my body, the better.
My wardrobe did a 180 when the '80s "mom jean" reentered the trend circuit, followed by the loose-fitting boyfriend jean, the wide-legged jean, and—finally—the barrel jean. Every passing year seems to surface bigger and baggier denim trends. But, the fashion pendulum is at last swinging back, as it so often does, and Bella Hadid has emerged as our sartorial canary in the coal mine.
Except, this time, the skinny jean revival doesn’t totally disgust me like I always thought it would. Maybe that’s because it’s in the hands of someone as stylistically adept as Hadid.
The Orebella founder wore her skinny jeans while out and about in New York City on Wednesday. Pleasantly waving to paparazzi, she looked decidedly casual and cool, more bohemian cowgirl than glam off-duty supermodel. Granted, her skinny jeans weren’t entirely skinny; she plucked a pair with a bootcut flair, a natural choice for her ongoing western transformation.
The skinny silhouette, however, stood in direct contrast to her choice of top: an oversize zip-up shearling jacket made of buttery caramel leather and trimmed with plush cream fur. The rest of the look featured more idiosyncratic elements, including a black graphic T-shirt, a chain necklace laden with coin charms, a black ribbon headband, and Y2K-esque shield sunglasses.
It’s possible that skinny jeans will eventually supplant barrel jeans as the reigning denim trend—a fate that seems ever more likely if recent street style sightings are any indication. Other celebrities who have brought the skinny jeans back in rotation include Katie Holmes, Zoe Saldaña, Meghan Markle, and Irina Shayk.
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