Those Skinny Jeans

Skinny jeans are in style or, perhaps I should say, back in style.

When I was a girl, jeans weren't a style choice at all. Some workmen wore them, and farm kids wore them, too, but rarely in town. Jeans were for riding horses--and mucking out the chicken coop.

By the late fifties and early sixties, teenage boys were wearing slim fitting jeans, with rolled up cuffs, but girls still wore dresses to school and church. If girls wore jeans at all, they were riding horses--or doing chores.

I don't remember when I got my first pair of regular blue jeans, but I'm guessing it was in the late 1960s. Then, they would have been boy's jeans that needed to be tailored to fit me. Mom was the tailor, and I was the picky one. I don't know why I insisted that my jeans should be skinny. I was pretty skinny myself, and the boy's jeans were not, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Mom didn't complain too much about taking a couple of tucks in the waist band, but she griped that slim legs, like I wanted, would fit so tightly that I wouldn't be able to get them on and off.

Spandex was invented in 1958, but it wasn't really used in jeans until the 21st century.

I couldn't wear jeans to school or, heaven forbid, to church. But they came in handy for riding horses--and hiking in the country with my family. (Do you see a pattern here?)

I'm front and center, sporting my fashionable skinny jeans, courtesy of Mom,
during our family trip to Toadstool Park in northwestern Nebraska.

Then, in the early 1970's, Sonny and Cher burst onto the scene with their bell bottom jeans, flared from the knee down, with huge leg openings at the bottom, where they usually drug on the ground. Their TV show was an immediate hit, and teens everywhere wanted to emulate their favorite stars. By then, girls could wear jeans to football games, when the weather was too cold for our short, yellow, pleated, Pep Club skirts. We still couldn't wear jeans to school, but we could wear bell bottom dress pants on the days we didn't want to wear pantyhose under our short, short dresses.

Bell bottoms were popular throughout the seventies. Bill loved his Levi's elephant bells, which were the widest of all. I think he was more than a little sad when bell bottoms went out of fashion, never to return. Flared pants have come in and out of style since then, but true bell bottoms have gone the way of flower power and the peace symbol.

Now, though, skinny jeans are back, better than ever, with enough spandex to fit anyone. I love my skinny jeans, with a long sweater on top. They tuck into boots quite nicely, and are so comfortable. I'm sure the day will come when I will need to stop wearing tight-fitting pants, but maybe, just maybe, bell bottoms will re-emerge as the latest, greatest thing in fashion design. After all, what goes around comes around.


Oh, I really hope not...