Success and fall of a rock icon: how skinny pants became a symbol of bad dress

Detail of a 'street style' image of the fashion 'blogger' Cali Chiki in Paris in March 2021, wearing torn Asos skinny jeans that are currently associated with something already completely overcrowded and outdated in the orbit of trends in favor of looser pants. Edward Berthelot (Getty Images)

The skinny pants have to die, sooner or later, and in this month of September saturated with obituaries their poor health is confirmed.

The first symptoms arose on TikTok, when that hyper-tight and almost always uncomfortable jean, which elevated rock and

the way of dressing men during the last two decades, became the garment that separates generation Z from

: in the Currently, the hashtag #noskinnyjeans —no to skinny jeans— accumulates more than 467 million views on the social network, making skinny pants synonymous with everything that is

it is young and modern.

In Spanish, several of these videos are within the hashtag #pantalonpitillo, with more than 1.7 million videos: in this one, for example, the stylist and

Monettehkd, a great defender of baggy pants, invites her almost half a million viewers to throw their

in the trash, set them on fire or use scissors to customize them.

The data begins to support the generational rejection.

Already last year, according to a market study collected by

newspaper , the sale of straight and wide jeans increased by 15% among the male public... and 97% among the female.

A greater focus on the inclusivity of the body, the newspaper points out, could be one of the reasons why young users tend to this type of more relaxed patterns and the decline in sales of

skinny

especially in the American market.

industry ideologues

instead speak of the cyclical forces of fashion as the real engine driving this change.

“The last cycle of

It lasted more than 10 years and it was the skinny jeans, it is very possible that we are already in a new era, ”explains Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi's, in this article from

Luka Sabbat summed up the

sentiment: "Skinny jeans are not very flattering right now."

Levi's 551Z, baggy and miles away from the narrow silhouette that we have become accustomed to seeing. ULYSSES ORTEGA

The cargo pants, dropped and with an ungainly air that reveals the underpants, are the protagonist of the Alled-Martínez autumn-winter 2022 collection.

The brand's star cut for this fall is proof.

reissue of the 1961 original, the brand's first zip- up jean, the Levi's 551Z release

features a very straight, loose leg.

“Silhouettes continue to loosen and proportions are changing, creating a whole new approach to how to wear

,” said Jill Guenza, vice president of design for Levi's.

The designer alludes to the wide

pattern that prevailed in the urban fashion of the nineties and early 2000s as the nostalgic reference that prevails in the present.

In the autumn proposal of the designer Archie Alled-Martínez, who was shortlisted for the 2020 LVMH prize and launched this year a collaboration with the firm Karl Lagerfeld, extreme tailoring is conspicuous by its absence, with one exception: a hyper-tight, high-rise jean. pirate court.

“He is inspired by baseball pants, it is part of the

fretwork that the entire collection has,” he explains, alluding to the collegiate aesthetic that has inspired his proposal.

The rest is dominated by a lanky

silhouette that reveals the briefs.

designer

which works from visual memory.

In this collection I wanted to revisit that time, that of my 15 years, but from my own codes, such as printing key words from the gay scene”.

We are talking about the mid-2000s, a time that Alled-Martínez reaffirms as the source of inspiration that the fashion industry currently looks to.

"Now we are all at that moment because it is what touches and coincides with the end of the cigarette."

Death in the nineties, golden moment in the 2000s

Skinny pants have gone through continuous ups and downs in popularity, always linked to musical and social movements.

While in the 1950s Elvis blushed the world with a jean that right-minded minds considered too tight, it was during the 1960s that this denim garment would first epitomize youth and rebelliousness in the hands of the

.

The film

(Franc Roddam, 1979), set in the street fights of the time between this gang and their antagonists, the

reflects the former's obsession with narrowing the trouser leg: in one scene, the protagonist plunges into a bathtub with his jeans on so that when they dried, they clung to his body like a second skin.

While the

movement took bell-bottoms as a symbol of freedom, in the twilight of this decade the first Levi's

was created , the 505 zipper model.

The first consignments of 1967 incorporated in an unprecedented way a straight and narrow leg in rigid

fabric , a pattern that would enthusiastically embrace the punk culture and specifically the Ramones, who narrowed them even more to intensify that thin tube or cigarette shape that give name.

The one that was the cover of the album

(1971) by

, would end up becoming an

against the overcrowding of the bell that society experienced in the seventies, with Iggy Pop and

as its most faithful followers.

Mod in 1964. William H. Alden (Getty Images)

The Ramones.Michael Ochs Archives (GETTY IMAGES)

In the 1980s, skinny jeans kept their style with the arrival of

and acid washes and as an emblem of

music promoted by bands like Megadeth, Metallica or Slayer.

But his

The first bump would come a decade later.

The explosion of

music demanded a much more relaxed, straight-leg style of clothing, like the classic Levi's 501 that the brand created in 1893. The hip hop community went further and wore their jeans in superlative sizes.

But a new golden age was about to come.

movement imposed on urban fashion in the mid-1990s

—led by bands like Blur and Oasis—, bringing brands like Adidas or Fred Perry back to the present, the new millennium would bring a new bonanza for skinny trousers and, in the long run, a consolidation in the male market that continues to this day.

At first it was the

rock stars

who made it fashionable.

Luke Pritchard [The Kooks], Johnny Borrell, Jamie Hince or Pete Doherty are the great

of the cigarette”, says Álvaro Naive.

This DJ and former member of the band Trajano!, who acquired his first skinny jeans 17 years ago, confesses that now it is a type of pattern that he has completely banished from his closet.

“Now I only wear a tight tracksuit and long johns for winter.”

An essential character on the Madrid scene who replicated the rock wave of the time, he remembers how he was often mocked for wearing these jeans on the street.

"Many of those who now wear that type of elastic tights that they sell in

chains laughed at me then, because they considered skinny jeans as a garment for women or that only the

of Gran Vía could wear them."

Alled-Martínez also recalls the golden years of the

—tight— during the first decade.

“For me the skinny jeans of that era symbolized a window into something totally new.

We are talking about the era before the iPhone and Myspace, the

rock

From that rocker aesthetic that Hedi Slimane defined in his first shows for Dior Homme… I remember looking at them fascinated on Style.com”.

The designer was not the only one who fervently desired that prohibitively tight jean —21 centimeters low— designed by Slimane, an emblem of

thanks to his outfits for bands like Franz Ferdinand or The Libertines.

Karl Lagerfeld confessed that he lost 40 kilos to be able to wear one of these designs for Dior.

“And if you couldn't buy Slimane or Neil Barrett, the only alternative you had was Cheap Monday and Topman.

If you didn't want to go to the girl's section, of course," says the designer.

Jamie Hince (The Kills) and Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand), two champions of skinny jeans in the early 2000s. GETTY IMAGES

The most influential cowboy of the time.

Dior Homme spring-summer 2005 show, designed by Hedi Slimane.

JEAN-PIERRE MULLER (AFP via Getty Images)

As the decade progressed, all kinds of versions began to be added to the growing popularity of the cut.

A model that would mark a before and after in the popular acceptance of skinny jeans would be Christophe Decarnin's proposal for Balmain's autumn-winter 2009: a hyper-tight version with reinforcements on both knees, like biker pants, copied and venerated to the satiety.

Although Kanye West was not the rapper who donned skinny jeans for the first time (although he has declared the opposite on more than one occasion), it was he who gave the Balmains their most flashy moment.

It happened at the gala of the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009, which will be remembered not only for the moment in which West stole the microphone from the award-winning Taylor Swift but also for wearing the aforementioned jeans, swirled over Timberland boots, during the ceremony.

Fashion has always been a common thread for West: the aforementioned turning point in the aesthetics of rap deals with the chorus of

the song that he would publish in 2010.

From 'cool' cowboy to 'cooltre'

During the following decade, the absolute popularization of skinny jeans took place until it became the king of the male wardrobe, but with a format quite far removed from its rock origins.

The young people hugged him

“It was the most interesting men's garment you could see in Madrid back in 2001 or 2002... Free-spirited, rocker,

and evocative;

I remember that very few wore them.

But time passed, Hedi's beatitudes were heard by all kinds of audiences (and legs), they became popular and conquered a shifting ground, going from being

to being

says Josie, stylist,

and declared enemy number one of this type of pants.

According to the logic of

, it was his transfer to the general public, Naive points out, that dug his grave.

"Today skinny pants have been completely devalued, rather it is an elastic mesh of dubious quality that is liked by polygonists, posh people and some

".

The low point of the trend is identified

a photo of four muscular men, shaved temples and impossibly tight pants, which has been circulating for years as a meme and even has its own Instagram account.

Kanye West at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in the famous Balmain 'motocross' jean.

Dimitrios Kambouris (WireImage)

Alternatives to the skinny: the 'boot cut' jean (flared at mid-calf) from the GANT x Wrangler collaboration.

The rejection of the narrow calf has led to the revival of cuts that have practically fallen into disuse, such as the

(flared at mid-calf), the protagonist of the first GANT x Wrangler collection.

But let's not talk about extinction.

First, because it is enough to go out on the street.

And second, as we said at the beginning of this text, due to the cyclical nature of fashion: "When something becomes fashionable and reaches the general public, it ends up dying, and the trendsetters look for or reinvent silhouettes to differentiate themselves," says Miriam Sanz , co-founder of the Shoop brand.

Jill Guenza doesn't rule out the return of skinny jeans to the pinnacle of fashion either: "Personally, I think

is a classic and classics never die."

Alled-Martínez agrees with the above.

“The rapid spread of fashion speeds up cycles.

The return of the

shows a need for change, but the next step will be to narrow the leg again.

Will it happen soon?

"The moment wide becomes mainstream, you'll like narrow again."

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