THE NEW SKINNY JEANS?

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

It is commonly accepted fashion lore that skinny jeans are so very ingrained into what we wear now that it will be a very long time before they look properly unfashionable. Even if they're not quite at the edge of edginess, so many men and women, no matter what they do, where they live or what their situation is, have at least one pair of skinnies in their wardrobe.

For quite some time, there's been a quiet skinny rebellion in the form of baggy, distressed, turned up boyfriend jeans. However, since Christmas it seems to me like that look has gathered pace. It's got to the point where I don't feel like every pair of jeans I see are of the figure hugging variety. A sure sign that there's an appetite for something baggier is that Topshop have introduced their Mom and Lacey styles to sit alongside the vast quantities of skinny Baxters and Leighs, of which 1.2million pairs were sold last year.Maybe it's just our post-Christmas tubbiness leading us to ditch the skinnies, or perhaps there's a bigger shift at play.

Some recent StreetPeeper shots of beautiful girls in boyfriend jeans

Obviously it does have a lot to do with the general resurgence in the popularity of 90s street wear. Phillip Lim's grunge inspired SS13 collection included a patchwork version of the boyfriend jean which I've already seen a recreation of in Zara, naturally. An acid washed jean often goes hand in had with a slogan tee or hi-tops. But I've also seen them worn with heels and heaps of jewellery, or quite simply with a tailored jacket. When I met up with Stella McCartney recently, she was wearing loose (not strictly baggy), turned up jeans with a cream silk blouse, a gold-buttoned navy blazer and mega high, chunky tan heels.

3.1 Phillip Lim SS13 (image via catwalking.com)

One version of baggy which caught my eye last week were Vintage Reserve Boyfriends by Joe's Jeans. The version I saw in the showroom were lilac washed with artfully placed little rips which, crucially, weren 't so big that they looked like they could quickly become far too holey. Joe's have done a similar thing to a few other brands by taking advantage of their incredible archives and reissuing some original 70s designs. The label is huge in the US but still quite new to the UK, where Liberty and Shopbop are the stockists to head to. The Joe's version tapers in at the ankle so that we don't lose too much of the tight silhouette we're used to with skinnies but they are certainly a thousand times more forgiving. Is it too soon to christen to jean of the teenies? And is that what we're calling this decade?

Joe's Jeans, starting at £111, from a selection in store at Liberty and online at Shopbop