The Word on the "Skinny"

Jennifer Lopez has bombarded the media and the young generation for years on belly-baring, low-rise flare pants. Now 2006 Autumn, multiple designers are re-introducing the skinny pants, and they're not looking into Hollywood for inspiration.

History of Skinny Pants (excerpt from The New York Times)

1956Gamine Bohemian

Adapted from a bohemian demimonde of dancers and artists, leotards signify a lean, artistic minimalism when worn by doe-eyed ingenues like Audrey Hepburn.

1965 The Emaciated Crowd

From English mods to Factory regulars, skinny trousers are the uniform of the hard-edged and underfed. Edie Sedgwick’s famous legs regularly appear in nothing but black tights.

1981 The Spandex Revolution

The leg-hugging look returns in full force in the late seventies and eighties, when three seemingly disparate subcultures (aerobics, hair bands, punk rock) simultaneously choose Lycra spandex as a wardrobe mainstay.

1985 Going Mainstream

Donna Karan outfits a generation of toned, take-charge female executives in boxy black jackets, big gold jewelry, and leg-hugging black pants; for the rest of the decade, closets are filled with stretch stirrups and jodhpurs.

2003 The Vacuum-Packed Look

Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière sucks the excess out of fashion, exiling the bootleg cut with a collection that fits like, and looks like, scuba gear.

2006 Stirrups Live!

Jeans get progressively tighter, the ankle zipper returns, and sales for Daryl K’s stretch-silk stirrup pants ($275) have increased by a third this season.

Audrey Hepburn
With lots of volume in terms of jackets, capes and coats, the skinny pant is the balance to that. It's beautiful. Makes you look immediately at the skinny legs while the upper body gets lost in an oversize sweater or swingy dress. Problem areas are instantly dissolved in this oversized silhouette. With a bootie, or a boot or a pump, you get longness of leg and instead of thinking, 'Her pants are too tight,' you instantly think, 'Wow, she looks slim.'


The Skinny

"Change is imminent," warns E! style guru Robert Verdi. "We've all got used to a lower waist line and a narrow thigh and a little bit of a flare. But it's also getting a little boring, so we have what usually happens when something gets boring - the total opposite. It's the 'grass is always greener' theory."

So who can wear them? "The 'petite munchkin,'" says Verdi. "Basically the woman who can get away with wearing anything."
Who are they? Girls like Sienna Miller and Kate Moss. Each has taken to the tapered, gathered-at-the-ankle jean with the kind of enthusiasm only a skinny girl can muster. (Kate, bless her, even wears hers with flats). Following in their footsteps is skinny starlet Mischa Barton, who has also been sporting "sprayed-on" jeans that go in at the ankle and bunch somewhere around the heel.

The look is starting to trickle down to the streets as well.

Classic, mod-inspired cigarette pants appeared in the Gucci fall collection (a sure sign of what you're about to find at H&M).
Then there are what designer Marsha Owett of Tribeca-based Lola Belle calls her "Matchstick" pants - they're super-skinny and all about stretch fabric, in corduroy, denim, velveteen and - be afraid - sateen.

Still, according to Owett, there's really nothing to fear. "Matchsticks are extremely flattering on everyone," she says, "because they are made of super-stretch materials that feel as great as they look and show off the sexy shape of the leg. The most unforgiving look around is the tapered jean, as embodied by Nudie's "Super Slim Kims" or Sass & Bide's "Frayed Misfits" style (the ones favored by Ms. Moss). We're talking tight, and in the right hands (or legs), as sexy as you can get.

If all else fails, defiantly wear your boot-cut jeans and wait for the moment to pass.

Tight-pants pointers

Do
... pair them with a loose-fitting top. Bloch suggests "a great oversized sweater falling off the shoulders." Also think tunic tops, trench coats, classic men's shirts and blazers, basically, anything that conceals the thigh-high danger zone.

... wear heels. The Skinny is going to make you look hippier than you are. A wedge, for instance, can look adorable with this style. Boots are not such a good idea, although Bloch says an ankle boot can work in a pinch - "if you're going for that Pat Benatar rock star look."

... favor the cigarette pant over the tapered pant,.as the former at least allows some kind of forgiveness in the hip area and less chance of revealing lurking cankles. Keep them long, choose black and the margin for error will close a little.

... choose a pair of pants that at least have plenty of stretch. That way, you've got some hope of coming out of this trend with dignity.

... keep it modern. "If they're done in the right way, they're really cool," says Suze Yalof Schwartz, executive fashion editor-at-large for Glamour magazine. "But if they're faded, stonewash with pleats, they look really bad. I don't know who's making those jeans, but they must be stopped immediately."

Don't
... eat. Extra calories are death to this exalted fashion moment. Just say no.

... go there at all if you've got big thighs. As Yalof Schwartz points out: "They draw attention to your thighs. It actually makes your legs look disproportionate. Boot-cut is so much better for someone with big thighs."

... worry if you just can't face the taper. As E!'s Robert Verdi puts it, "a lot of younger people want to wear this look because it's new and exciting to them. If you're an adult who's already been through it the first time, you shouldn't have to follow too many of fashion's rules."

... wear them with cropped jackets, form-fitting tops or anything tight or short up top. This one's a shoutout to anyone even approaching a womanly figure.

... give in to that other major catwalk trend - high waists - if you must go the skinny pants route.

As Bloch says, "If you've got hips, they make you look like, well, you've got hips."