"The skinny pant," says Jeff Rudes, "is here to stay. No matter what else is happening on the catwalks, it's a bestseller, year in year out." Rudes is the American founder of J Brand - the cult jeans company that last year sold six million pairs, most of them skinny. You could say he's narrow-minded.
Over the coming weeks there will be no shortage of advice on the key trends for spring and summer - but swathes of women will, as they have for the past 10 years, carry on wearing drainpipes, with a variety of tops (baggy or tight) and jackets .
Social historians looking back on the early 21st century will conclude that flares, lace, digital prints, metallic and all the other transient headlines were just a side dish.
The dominant silhouette is long, lean and built for speed. Its exponents - and there are many - include Liz Hurley, sipping green tea in Gloucestershire in her white 7 For All Mankind jeans; the Duchess of Cambridge walking her cocker spaniel along the beaches of Anglesey in J Brand's navy 811s; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley conducting a master-class in modern aviation glamour in black leather drainpipes; Rihanna giving text-book degenerate diva-style a whirl in cut-out leather Rodarte hold-ups; Mary Portas bestriding the high street in cropped Houlihans (the J Brand style that caused a waiting list sensation in 2010); Fiona Bruce, Kate Silverton and fellow BBC presenters singing All The Single Ladies in their slim black trousers and military jackets on Children in Need in 2009… These women represent the north-south-east-west of taste, yet whether they're on the Waitrose run or the red carpet, they're united in their choice of quotidian uniform.
The New York Times 's indefatigable octogenarian chronicler of street style, remarked last month that the skinny-covered leg, anchored by a solid ankle boot and some kind of oversized, furry coat, was the dominant look on Manhattan's freezing sidewalks. As the days warm up, the caterpillar-soled high-heeled boots will make way for flat velvet slippers and statement sandals, while the animalistic coats will be replaced by feminine broderie anglaise tops. This is one of the few catwalk trends destined for mass adoption, not least because broderie anglaise is the perfect play-off against a tough jean. There seems to be unlimited mileage. J Brand,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & Mold Maker, widely regarded as a market leader, has coated snake-prints, florals and even multi-coloured tie-dye in the pipeline for summer.
On some level, designers instinctively know that whatever they put on the catwalk, its success depends on how compatible it is with skinny jeans. This is especially true of footwear, 98 per cent of which is now designed to work with a drainpipe leg, hence the enduring popularity of the high-heeled ankle boot and shoe-boot.
Yet viewed objectively - i.e. not through the prism of habit - the skinny is a highly suggestive, unforgiving item of clothing. In extreme cases, a tight jean gets gynaecologically explicit.
It was Alexander McQueen, in the early Nineties, who reshaped trousers, elevating them from a safe also-ran fashion garment to something much more provocative and subversive. The late Eighties had been all about the sexy power suit, the star of which was a mini-skirt; not a trouser to be seen. The McQueen bumster was masculine and outrageously low-cut on the hips, hence its soubriquet, and narrow. An ocean of whale tails (the evocative name for the visible G-string that was the inevitable result of wearing such a low waistband) was the result, as scores of "premium" denim brands launched to take advantage of the hipsters revival.
Rudes went one further when he launched J Brand in 2005. Its first design was a skinny leg - in dark denim. "I wanted something completely different from all those other Californian premium denim ranges," he says. From the start, J Brand was conceived as an aspirational fashion label that would ride out the denim craze.
Over the coming weeks there will be no shortage of advice on the key trends for spring and summer - but swathes of women will, as they have for the past 10 years, carry on wearing drainpipes, with a variety of tops (baggy or tight) and jackets .
Social historians looking back on the early 21st century will conclude that flares, lace, digital prints, metallic and all the other transient headlines were just a side dish.
The dominant silhouette is long, lean and built for speed. Its exponents - and there are many - include Liz Hurley, sipping green tea in Gloucestershire in her white 7 For All Mankind jeans; the Duchess of Cambridge walking her cocker spaniel along the beaches of Anglesey in J Brand's navy 811s; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley conducting a master-class in modern aviation glamour in black leather drainpipes; Rihanna giving text-book degenerate diva-style a whirl in cut-out leather Rodarte hold-ups; Mary Portas bestriding the high street in cropped Houlihans (the J Brand style that caused a waiting list sensation in 2010); Fiona Bruce, Kate Silverton and fellow BBC presenters singing All The Single Ladies in their slim black trousers and military jackets on Children in Need in 2009… These women represent the north-south-east-west of taste, yet whether they're on the Waitrose run or the red carpet, they're united in their choice of quotidian uniform.
The New York Times 's indefatigable octogenarian chronicler of street style, remarked last month that the skinny-covered leg, anchored by a solid ankle boot and some kind of oversized, furry coat, was the dominant look on Manhattan's freezing sidewalks. As the days warm up, the caterpillar-soled high-heeled boots will make way for flat velvet slippers and statement sandals, while the animalistic coats will be replaced by feminine broderie anglaise tops. This is one of the few catwalk trends destined for mass adoption, not least because broderie anglaise is the perfect play-off against a tough jean. There seems to be unlimited mileage. J Brand,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & Mold Maker, widely regarded as a market leader, has coated snake-prints, florals and even multi-coloured tie-dye in the pipeline for summer.
On some level, designers instinctively know that whatever they put on the catwalk, its success depends on how compatible it is with skinny jeans. This is especially true of footwear, 98 per cent of which is now designed to work with a drainpipe leg, hence the enduring popularity of the high-heeled ankle boot and shoe-boot.
Yet viewed objectively - i.e. not through the prism of habit - the skinny is a highly suggestive, unforgiving item of clothing. In extreme cases, a tight jean gets gynaecologically explicit.
It was Alexander McQueen, in the early Nineties, who reshaped trousers, elevating them from a safe also-ran fashion garment to something much more provocative and subversive. The late Eighties had been all about the sexy power suit, the star of which was a mini-skirt; not a trouser to be seen. The McQueen bumster was masculine and outrageously low-cut on the hips, hence its soubriquet, and narrow. An ocean of whale tails (the evocative name for the visible G-string that was the inevitable result of wearing such a low waistband) was the result, as scores of "premium" denim brands launched to take advantage of the hipsters revival.
Rudes went one further when he launched J Brand in 2005. Its first design was a skinny leg - in dark denim. "I wanted something completely different from all those other Californian premium denim ranges," he says. From the start, J Brand was conceived as an aspirational fashion label that would ride out the denim craze.
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