By Caitlin Brown 

Hold on to your skinny jeans, because they’ll be back. 

Just when I had finally gotten used to the skinny jean, the re-awakening/resurgence of 90s fashion (Why, just why?) has deemed them dead. Gen X has decided they need to be over, which leaves millennials like me, and those wanting to stay within the confines of what’s in vs. what’s not, scratching their heads on how to fit the new shapes on their own.  

Now that I’m reconciled to getting rid of many pairs of skinny jeans in my spring- cleaning foray (and my capsule closet experiment — a super trend coming out of Covid), I’m left befuddled.   

These new silhouettes feel weird. It’s like putting on the bad threads of a decade gone by that you would just as soon leave there. I saw a 20-something the other day at the cash register excitedly holding her soon-to-be-purchased high-waist, stone-washed, and ripped… very, very ripped jeans. A few girls down, another pair of a new shape: straight boyfriendish and on the mannequins, wide-legged, high-waist, baggy high-waisted and more foreign fits. 

I couldn’t help looking down at my skinny jeans and wondering if they were the ones biting their lip. I realized then I was going to have to eventually succumb to a semblance of this new silhouette, and suddenly panic set in for all that it implied: new shoes and tops to work with new shape and well, change. I didn’t like the jeans in the 90s, and these sure look a lot like them. 

How will I wear them? Can I make these ugly things cute? Should I just continue wearing my skinnies and hope others share the sentiment? If I wait long enough, they’ll just faze out, right? But that’s also what I thought when skinny jeans took over, and now look at me not wanting to depart for them.  

This trend may not seem like a big deal, but if you wear jeans with everything, they matter, and how they look matters. 

As I write this, I can’t help but feel glad I have the spring and summer to put this problem on ice and maybe warm up to what’s coming.  

Some of the latest shapes to try on for size: 

Slim Boot Cut 

Barrel Leg 

Slim Straight Leg 

Loose Straight Leg 

Loose–Fitting Ripped 

The Skater Jean (high-waist baggy) 

High-Waist, Wide Leg 

And lest we forget, 90s-inspired light washes, too.