Working at a liberal arts school, I sometimes see my colleagues wearing jeans. One colleague in particular typically wears a style of jeans that are about ten years out of date. Of course, the jeans that I wear most frequently are nearly two years old, so I’m sure that I will be out of fashion soon (if I’m not already). The point of this is that despite their long-standing place in the American wardrobe, jeans come in a wide variety of styles and fits. Now there is one more.
Levi’s has been selling “501 Boyfriend Jeans” for women for a while now*. The idea behind them is apparently that they are cut in a way that mimics men’s jeans (but still, somehow, not men’s jeans). Now, Levi’s has responded to the rise of “skinny jeans” with”Ex-Girlfriend Jeans” for men despite the fact that nearly nobody looks good in them (unless they want to accentuate their differences). Now men can buy super-tight jeans that were made for them but fit like they were made for their girlfriends (or, I guess, the girls who broke up with them for stealing their jeans).
Memoirs of a SLACer field reporter Stephen Colbert examines this issue further.
*It is interesting to note the way the Levi’s website differentiates “normal” men and women – the styles you get by clicking on those labels along the top of the site – from the labels that appear when you hover over these labels. For men, the only other option is “Big and Tall” while women can be either normal, “Petite,” or “Plus.”
Memoirs of a SLACer 