skinny jeans

So anyway, about the skinny jeans. They´re totally ¨in¨ right now. And I´ve had hopes of pulling off the skinny-jeans-tucked-into-boots for about two years... which probably means that by the time I master the look it will be out of style, but so be it. It will be back ¨in¨ in another twenty to thirty years, and this time I´ll be ready for it.

And if the skinny jean-boot combo is a hot item in the States, then it´s a raging inferno down here. It´s practically all I see women wearing in the streets. And it looks so damn good. But then why, might I ask, do skinny jeans look so awful on me?

Don´t bother, I can answer my own question, and the reasoning is twofold. 1) I´m short, and 2) I have Runners´ Thighs (which is fine with me, since it means I can tear it up on the soccer field, but don´t come a knockin´ with your tight, little pants).

But I know that there are other short, meaty-legged women in the world, and I´d even seen some rockin´ out with tight pants, so I figured there must be a pair of skinny jeans out there that would fit me like a glove (a flattering glove, clearly). Oooh, what an exciting thought. I made it my mission to find them. And find them I did, but not after numerous failed attempts....

Like the time a really nice woman was helping me find different styles and sizes, and halfway through trying on the pile we´d formed, I tried to squat my way into a pair and the crotch exploded. Literally. It sounded like a gun went off. The entire seam of the crotch just busted open. Fantastic.

Or how about the time I went with my host brother, Ia, to Zara because he had to return a shirt, and while he was upstairs in the men´s department I found a pair of pants I thought might work. And as I stood in front of three huge mirrors in the center of the dressing room, thinking to myself that I had been sorely mistaken, I looked up to see him with a grin so big I thought he´d crack his face open. It told me everything I needed to know, but I figured I may as well have fun with it, so I asked him if the pants made me look like I was about to ride a horse. (I even went as far as to make the motion of mounting a horse.) He just laughed and nodded his head, and I huffed back into the dressing stall. If Zara´s going to sell riding pants, they should at least label them appropriately.

But then, suddenly, there they were. My friend Janine found them. Just handed them to me casually over a dressing room wall as if this kind of phenomenon happens every day. I slipped them on, and they were perfect. Not too long, not too tapered, not too tight. It was magical. And I suddenly understood that it must be this kind of moment that keeps hoards of women shopping year after year, perservering through the hell that is the never-ending search for new jeans, bikinis, and dresses that minimize your waist and accentuate your breasts.

Oh, what women will do for fashion.