Spray-On Pants

Last night I wore my skinny jeans with a pair of knee-high boots to the cinema. It was cold, and that lower-body combination is one of the warmest things you can wear. I realised when I got home that it was time to purchase a new pair of skinny jeans, on account of the fact that the ones I was wearing were incredibly saggy and, in short, about a kilometre too big for me (unsurprising, really, given that I've shed nearly 10kg since I bought them). Not really the look you go for when you're wearing skinny jeans.

So today I went to the shops and picked out two styles of skinny jeans. I tried on a pair of 12s first, seeing as that was the size pants I was wearing at the time. No go. Then a pair of 14s. Still no luck. I panicked for a second or two, and then realised that one style was super-skinny, and the other, were in fact, jeggings.

Jeggings are a crime against humanity. I can't even begin to tell you how many things are wrong with them. Suffice it to say I struggled to get them - and the super-skinny jeans - beyond mid-thigh. Okay, that's not true. One of the styles I couldn't actually get far enough up my legs for the crotch to sit less than about 30cm from where it ought to. Apparently they are designed for people with the body of a 12-year-old (which, let's face it, I didn't even have as a 12-year-old), so, you know, not me. I can accept that. I will look harder and find a pair of non-super-skinny, non-jegging, non-spray-on skinny jeans sooner or later. But what completely boggles my mind is seeing larger girls wearing jeggings who really shouldn't be. I suspect that these are the same girls who wear teensy, tiny, inappropriately short shorts in summer. By all appearances, these girls either got their friends to hold the jeans up on one side of the room, took a flying leap and got into their jeans that way, or they were sewn in, and I suspect a similar thing has gone on with the short shorts.

So run it past me why, when I was their age, they didn't even make skinny jeans and short shorts in anything above a size 12 (every now and then you'd get lucky and find a 14, but it was rare), and yet now it is a perfectly acceptable practice. I realise the irony of my objection, given that the original jeans were a size 16, and I'm all for embracing your body, whatever its shape, but I'm also all for dressing in a flattering manner, a concept completely lost on these girls. This is why I'm not going to buy another pair of skinny jeans until I can find some that I don't need the assistance of a novelty-sized shoe horn to get myself into.