My Best Everyday Jeans Are $24.99
My Best Everyday Jeans Are $24.99
Those Carolyn Bessette jeans are a lie. Wear these instead.
Today on #NEVERWORNS, after a long hiatus, I’m talking about my favorite jeans. I can’t stand this world of pipe dream denim that is constantly infecting my feeds through archive imagery. It never fits. It’s a lie. As always, subscribe and watch the NEVERWORNS channel. More soon…:-)
I bought a great pair of jeans long ago at a local big box store in Massachusetts: Light wash men’s Wrangler jeans titled “WRANGLER® FIVE STAR PREMIUM DENIM REGULAR FIT JEAN IN LT STONEWASH” with the style number 96501SL. (I also have a pair in dark Indigo). Fun fact: They are $24.99 and they are one of the few new things that I own in my wardrobe. The denim is nasty thick…that good vintage girth that makes you feel something. You are wearing good denim. You are protected. It’s great quality denim that has get-better-with-age appeal because it can take the heat of the day-to-day gruel.
So how did I get here? At a lone big box store trying on a pair of jeans? Well, it was a leap of faith: I was probably buying cat food in bulk for my mom and dawdled by the stacked denim section. After all, I have long struggled to find a good jean. I want to note that 95 percent of my wardrobe is secondhand but with jeans, I always run into issues and have dabbled in the new-verse. And it’s always the same annoying situation. The cuts are a nightmare: Too much of a skinny jean, too much of a mom jean, or too wannabe Y2K low-rise. The fabric is another issue. Why do all of these new jeans feel like they are made out of 1-ply toilet paper? And if jeans have a sturdy Bounty-thick feel, why do they have to be exorbitantly priced? (Brands, you know who you are!)
It doesn’t make it easier that images of pipe dream denim constantly crops up on my feed. Like everyone else on Instagram, I too have seen the photos of mid-'90s-era WASP queen Carolyn Bessette, leaving her Tribeca apartment in a pair of jeans that are that pure Atlantic ocean blue with that perfect little flare that artfully reveals the chunk of her heel. Give me a break! Those vintage jeans don’t exist, and if they do, they are in the innards of Poshmark with a risk-it-all return policy or in some curated Brooklyn vintage shop with a price tag that is the equivalent existential crisis.
And let’s not forget that the jeans that Bessette is wearing, among many of the jeans that are produced today, are crafted for assless Amazons with vertiginous legs. At least for me—and my butt—I never win in the denim market.
Something to note: These are men’s jeans, meaning that their non-tailored state gives the legs a Lego shape. And like for many women who wear men’s jeans, I experience a gap at the waist, which makes them slouch further down on me…elongating the torso. Quelle horreur! The solution is simply tailoring the waist. It makes all the difference. (You can listen to the joys of tailoring on my #NEVERWORNS episode with Mellany Sanchez.)
I ended up getting my own pair tailored by a woman in Odesa, Ukraine, which took less than a day. Now, they fit in that quintessential supermodel way: The waist skims right below the belly button and the sides hike slightly above the hips for an hourglass shape. The leg hits right below the ankle, which is great for me, but there is always the option to get it longer. (I’m 5’7 on a good day and have a tailored 30 x 30 pair for reference.)
It’s the ultimate jean that can transition any which way. The denim works with a crunchy Teva for when you’re, like, at the farmer’s market stuffing your flimsy little tote with upstate kale. And in the afternoon, when you’re, say, shopping at one of those curated vintage stores—not looking at denim!—with a hulking white shopping bag over your arm, you can wear the jean with a black tank top and a block heel sandal. At night, if you’re getting a drink at a wine bar where a glass will set you back $16, or maybe heading to some sweaty techno club in Brighton Beach, this jean works even with a freaky halter top and a gem-encrusted early ‘00s strappy sandal. In the winter, I wear them with a Tom Ford-era Gucci boot with a heel that looks like a weapon.
I wear my clothes to death. Quality from years of ‘90s yore is always better, and that is the decade I usually shop. For me to buy something new…well, it has to be a thoughtful miracle. These ranching-ready jeans are that—and it doesn’t take much to make them really shine…just a nip-and-sew moment.
Wrangler make the best jeans. Have done so for a long time.
Love the jeans on you, it's a clothing category my legs and I had long given up on but now I might actually give it another go! I don't know if I'll ever feel ok buying expensive denim as a category, seems crazy to think that's the only way to get decent quality denim now?! I hate deteriorating production standards. Also stretchy jeans just feel wrong to me, could never feel quite comfortable in them which is ironic because stretch was for comfort to begin with...
(the only pairs of jeans currently in my wardobe are a blue and a black pair dating back to my 00s university days, both of which have been kept as souvenirs of the era rather than actual wearables - very literal in the case of the blue pair, on which my 19-year-old self carefully wrote out every significant memory of my first year there in block capitals with a biro, and then went back and filled them in with more biro after every wash the way some people fill in eyebrows!)