Waisted again: will the wedgie kill off the skinny jean?

Forget mom jeans, boot-cut and the girlfriend – there’s a new shape for denim, a high-waisted trend that riffs on Marilyn Monroe and Beverly Hills 90210

    The wedgie jean from Levi’s. Photograph: Matthew B Wright

Like most women, I have loads of jeans. Skinny ones, straight ones, ripped ones, ones that have seen better days. My current favourite is a rediscovered pair of Acne ones that bridge the gap between skinny and straight, and I like to wear with sweatshirts and sneakers.

So, could a new style tempt me? In the brave new world, after the decades-long dominance of the skinny jean, denim brands are getting very excited about what might be the new shape. There’s mom jeans, a consciously 90s and slightly arch look, high-waisted and loose around the leg. There’s the boot-cut, as suggested by AG and Gucci which, in fashion terms, practically means it’s gospel. Or the girlfriend, Gap’s halfway house between the skinny and the slouch – we dubbed itthe Slimmy last year. And now Levi’s, frankly a brand you have to listen to when talking about jeans, has the wedgie.

Wedgie jeans from Levi’s, with tight fit around the waist and thigh to ‘show off your best assets’.                                         Photograph: Matthew B Wright

Admittedly, the name doesn’t sound too promising. Who wants a wedgie, that thing when your underwear is pulled up round your waist by the schoolyard bully, when they put on their jeans? But it also nods to the fit of this new shape – inspired by vintage Levi’s, it’s about a super-tight fit at the waist and through the thighs designed to accentuate the wearer’s bottom. As the tag says, it “hugs your waist and hips, showcasing your best assets”. Marilyn Monroe might have been wearing Lee jeans in The Misfits, but that’s the idea. Unlike the skinny, the waist is high and the fit is closer to, for want of a better word, a “normal” – not Normcore – jean, pre-skinny, before talk of the fit of jeans became the stuff of all scintillating fashion conversations.

Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits in 1961. Photograph: Alamy

Trying them on, they do feel almost quaintly old-fashioned, a bit like slipping into the secondhand 501s I bought as a teenager, the ones that were totally Donna in 90210 – or so I thought. The waist sits higher on the back than the front, and the button-fly (far less common these days, I find) makes you feel pulled in. But, as Levi’s suggest, it’s the back view that’s the, um, clincher. Skinny jeans were all about the legs – that’s why they were worn so well by off-duty models and with less success by the rest of us. These, on the other hand, are all about the bottom. They lift it, frame it and suck it in. It’s not going to prompt me to take a belfie any time soon, but I’ll definitely be adding the wedgie to my denim wardrobe. There’s always room for one more pair, after all.

Do the Donna: the cast of Beverly Hills 90210. Photograph: SNAP/Rex/Shutterstock
source:theguardian