Skinny jeans; Love them or hate them? The tight-fit look for men has been with us for centuries. While nobody seems to object to figure hugging style for women, the skinny jeans (and their predecessors) still court controversy and the style is often favoured by those who form part of the sub-culture or prefer the style less than conservative.
However, the skinny look for men’s fashion has a long history. The style has a history dating back to the dark ages. In the medieval period skinny jeans, at that time known as hose, were the one and only fashion icon for the men, although in those days a delightfully full pantaloon was often used to cover the essentials. The look can still be found today (minus the pantaloon) and skinny jeans are loved and hated in equal measure.
Revealing History
The fashion, started with the hose, continued into the 18th century with the Rake of Rakes about Town, Beau Brummel, infamous dandy, wit, and not much else. Brummel was not afraid to lay his cards on the table, in so many senses, and his sartorial style led to and the ‘skinny’ look become the ultimate expression of masculine, yet cultured, elegance.
The tight fitting trouser of the 18th century left very little to the imagination. Well, it left nothing whatsoever to the imagination, which explains all that fainting on the part of the fairer sex. Social constrictions in the Victorian era put paid to constrictive pants, however, and layers and layers and layers of tailored subtly became the norm.
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria Pants, trousers and jeans remained baggy until the 1950s; enter the era of Rock and Roll. Elvis Presley was one of the earliest truly global stars and it was Presley, brought up in the conservative deep south, who could be credited with the return of the vacuum packed look and associated hysteria.
In reality Presley’s jeans were, by skinny standards, not particularly skinny, but the style went global along with his music and rock; drainpipe jeans and the bad boy/girl image were born. Throughout the sixties, the skinny look was synonymous with rebellion, rock and the wrong side of the tracks. The mod movement adopted the look early on the fifties and has refused to let go of it ever since or, perhaps, just can’t get them off.
Dead Fashionable
By the end of the swinging sixties, hippy culture was in, well, full swing. Flares were the iconic jean-du-jour, and were adopted around the peace loving globe. Despite this new flare up in fashion, the less than mainstream culture could still not be pulled off the more rebellious rock icons, and skinny remained de-rigueur for any self respecting punk, mod and, later, the New Romantics. This latter movement brought the look full circle with their fusion of punk mod and long dead Beau Brummel styles.
The Goth look also appeared around this time; the look was easy to achieve for girls who could simply model themselves on the style icon that is Morticia Adams. For boys it was more difficult, as none of us wanted to look like Gomez so we all copied Robert Smith, from the Cure, who wouldn’t have been seen alive in anything but the regulation black skinny jean. Have I just given away my age and teen musical tastes? Curses.
Fashion Chaos
During the nineties mainstream and not so main stream culture fractured; there was rave culture, where you didn’t really need clothes, or not for long at any rate, and there was grunge, where your clothes tended to fall off whether you liked it or not.
As the (expected) end of the world approached in the late nineties, the fashion for jeans was certainly baggy. Drawing influence from Rap, everyone was wearing prison pants with no belt, presumably on the assumption that it wasn’t going to matter come midnight on 31 December 1999. How wrong can you be? The world survived and everyone put their pants back on.
Enduring Looks
Today, the skinny jean look remains controversial. You either love it or hate it; and it remains popular within the sub-cultures, underground and alternative cultures. Goth has proved to be a truly un-dead fashion style. The skinny black jean remains uniformly popular amongst the boy-variety of Goth, while young women, aspiring to the Cat-Woman-of-the-Dead, look can also be seen sporting them.
The Emos, descended from the hardcore punks of the early eighties, steadfastly refuse to give up the skinny fit look. Whether this is a nod to their association with all that is underground, or merely a necessary practicality for those who need to keep up a troubled, pained expression much of the time, is hard to tell.
Whatever the reason, whether you love or hate them, the skinny jean is one style that has stood the test of time!
Whether you love or hate the skinny jean, this particular style of jeans for men has long been with us. From Elizabethan hose, to modern day emos, the figure hugging look has become the style of the discerning bad boys and girls.