Women around the world, breathe a sigh of relief: skinny jeans are out.
Lesson summary
Hi there everybody, I’m Jeff and you are listening to Lesson 378 of Plain English, where we use trending topics and current events to help you upgrade your skills in English. JR is the producer, and he has posted the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/378.
Coming up today: Love ’em or hate ’em, skinny jeans were a staple of women’s fashion for decades, peaking in the early 2000s. But I am here to tell you, they are now officially out of style. And if you don’t believe me, check TikTok. As always, we have an English expression to talk about; today it’s the phrasal verb “break out.” And we have a quote of the week. Let’s get started!
Skinny jeans are out
Generation Z has spoken: skinny jeans are officially uncool.
They say fashion goes in cycles and what’s in today will be out tomorrow while what’s out today will come back. In the 1960s and 1970s, women wore bell-bottoms. These were pants that were tight around the waist but then expanded from the knee down to the ankle, so they were wide at the bottom. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, popular jeans became baggier, with lots of room to maneuver; this was true for both men and women. Remember cargo pants? These were loose-fitting pants with pockets all over the place.
But as jeans in the shopping malls got baggier, trends among rock stars were moving in a different direction. By the 1980s, heavy metal bands like Anthrax, Metallica, and Megadeath started wearing tight acid-washed jeans on their slim frames. The trend continued into the 1990s, with icons like Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Kiss, and Bon Jovi all wearing slimmer pants.
It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that the trend for slimmer pants made the jump into mainstream fashion, especially for women. At first, skinny jeans weren’t sold in shopping malls because it was considered too risky and not profitable to sell tight-fitting jeans on the mass market. So, skinny jeans took off online. But in about 2005, skinny jeans became more and more visible thanks to celebrities, and demand among consumers surged. British supermodel Kate Moss wore them; so did actress Sienna Miller. As a result, legions of women followed suit .
In the second half of that decade, skinny jeans became the default style of jeans and choice for casual pants by both women and men. Manufacturers experimented with varying designs particularly by putting a small amount of spandex into the fabric to allow them to stretch, and of course, to fit even more snugly. The only minor problem—and it was a minor problem—is that skinny jeans are not comfortable.
Millennial generation women—and to lesser extent men—have spent the last fifteen years squeezing themselves into slimmer and slimmer pants, sacrificing comfort along the way. And then came COVID-19.
After a year of communicating on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, TikTok, and Snapchat, we all got used to looking good on our upper half but wearing whatever was most comfortable on our lower half. And Generation Z has decided they are not going back to tight-fitting pants especially not after the year of comfortable pants they just lived through.
And in fact, a generational battle has broken out between the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) and Generation Z (those born after 1997) over the matter. Gen Z says that if you wear skinny jeans anymore, it’s proof positive that you’re old and trying to look younger. Some Millennials are trying to defend their signature look—but a lot of them are secretly recognizing that they weren’t that comfortable in the first place.
Now the celebrity press is making people choose sides. They photographed the actress Katie Holmes wearing looser-fitting jeans but Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Kamala Harris, the American Vice President were photographed still squeezing into their skinny jeans.
Skinny jeans have not always been popular. Over the years, tight pants have been blamed for all sorts of ailments. In Victorian times, doctors blamed tight trousers for apoplexy. That’s internal bleeding. More recently, some doctors have said they cause numbness in your legs. A group of Korean doctors said they cause varicose veins. And men aren’t exempt; skinny jeans for men have been blamed for causing low sperm count.
Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, banned skinny jeans in his country. He said they were a symbol of the “capitalist lifestyle,” and he did not mean that as a compliment.
Fashion trends over the years
Whenever we have a science-related lesson, I always say that I’m a little out of my comfort zone and I have to do more research than necessary. Well, that’s doubly true when talking about fashion! I relied more than usual on research about skinny jeans.
Our next live conversation call with Plain English Plus members is coming up tomorrow night, July 6 here in the U.S. The discussion will start with skinny jeans and we’ll expand to fashion trends through the years. I’d love to get all of your opinions on this and hear your stories about comfortable and uncomfortable fashion over the years. That will be a fun topic. So that’s on our call tomorrow night.
Live conversation calls are included in the Plain English Plus+ membership. So, if you’re a member, check your dashboard for the date and time of the next call. If you’re not yet a member and you’d like to practice your speaking and conversation skills in a friendly and supportive environment, then head on over to PlainEnglish.com/Plus and join us.
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