The end of oversize? Skinny jeans are striking back
Hardly any item of clothing has been as consistently shunned in recent years as skinny jeans. Now they are well on their way back. What their comeback reveals about the fashion of our time.
Until recently, the consensus was: if you wear skinny jeans, you reveal yourself as a millennial who got stuck fashion-wise somewhere in the 2010s. After all, the current decade has so far been defined by oversized looks. Wide, extra-long trousers and voluminous, sculptural fits dictated sweeping silhouettes – more fabric, less body. But this aesthetic seems to be slowly shifting.
Almost 500 percent more skinny pants
There have been rumors of a skinny jeans comeback for several seasons now. At the end of 2023, for example, trendsetter Bella Hadid was spotted in a slim denim model, sparking discourse. For its Winter 2024 collection, Miu Miu sent models down the runway in skin-tight denim. Isolated cases, one might have said back then.
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
By now, however, you have to squint pretty hard to overlook the development. Celine, Gucci, Valentino, Isabel Marant, 7 For All Mankind, and Prada have recently showcased numerous trousers on their runways that pass at least as slim, and in some cases, clearly as skinny. The shift is particularly evident in menswear: according to an analysis by the runway search engine Tagwalk, the presence of skinny pants—meaning jeans and fabric trousers—in the Spring/Summer 2027 collections increased by 497 percent compared to the previous season.
Why now of all times?
That sounds like a fairly clear comeback. At least on the runway. Whether we are ready for skin-tight trousers in everyday life again is another question. The phenomenon can currently be classified more as a symbolic than a commercial comeback. Fashion is tentatively approaching skinny jeans again, but the mass market is more reserved. It was only in 2023 that the market research firm Circana reported a 22 percent decline in skinny jeans sales in the USA.
And yet, a change is discernible. The fact that skinny pants already seem interesting again fits the general acceleration of fashion cycles. For a long time, the rule of thumb was that a major trend takes about 20 years to return: enough time for a new generation to no longer perceive what was once old-fashioned as embarrassing, but rather as retro and cool.
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
Today, this process can happen much faster. Trends no longer reach us only through seasonal collections, runways, and magazines, but are constantly bombarding us via fast-fashion chains and social media. What is seen everywhere and all the time also becomes boring just as quickly. The search for the unfamiliar begins—and it is not uncommon to find what you are looking for in the past. A discredited trend seems exciting again precisely because it polarizes. Those who wear it can stand out from the crowd and position themselves as trendsetters.
Shrinking bodies, shrinking pants
The current cycle of nostalgia is also helping skinny jeans get back on their feet. After fashion successfully revived the aesthetic of the 2000s for the last half-decade, the 2010s are increasingly coming into focus. Fittingly, ballet flats, contemporaries of the skinny jean, have long since been rehabilitated—after having experienced a similarly spectacular downfall back then. Even sneakers have become more delicate. The proportions around the trousers are therefore changing along with them.
At least as exciting is what is happening underneath the clothing. It seems as if even the diet culture of that time is back. Parallel to the return of body-conscious silhouettes, extremely slim body ideals are also gaining visibility again—not least in the wake of the much-discussed «Ozempic epidemic».
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
Source: Launchmetrics/Spotlight
Skinny is not the same as skinny
One can only hope that we have at least learned from one mistake: namely, that the mix of jeans and leggings—jeggings—is a very, truly very bad idea. We can breathe a sigh of relief for now. Fortunately, today's skinny jeans are not exactly the same as they were back then.
They have more structure and less stretch. Consequently, the cuts are no longer uncompromisingly tight. Some models that are called skinny today might have barely passed as a straight fit 15 years ago. With the cigarette jean, a kind of light version of the skinny jean has also been particularly present recently: close to the body, but not vacuum-packed.
And what happens to our baggy jeans?
For now: nothing. The fact that tight trousers are slowly coming back does not automatically mean that wide ones are disappearing. Wide leg, straight leg, barrel leg, and skinny jeans are currently coexisting surprisingly peacefully. How wide the spectrum has become was recently shown by Celine, for example: in the same menswear collection, models walked the runway in tight leggings alongside others in voluminous balloon trousers.
Perhaps this simultaneity is the truly interesting aspect of the development. Trend cycles that rotate so fast that they overlap. Opposites that coexist quite naturally. Could this ironically even be the answer to the ever-shorter lifespan of trends? Perhaps the carousel will soon spin so rapidly that standing still becomes the most appealing option, even for the biggest fashion victims.
Has endless love for shoulder pads, Stratocasters and sashimi, but a limited tolerance for bad impressions of her Eastern Swiss dialect.
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