If You Give a Gal a Pair of Barrel-Legged Pants...
She's going to probably have to reassess her entire closet.
I am not an early adopter.
It took me years to accept the skinny leg jean. I couldn’t help but feel like the shape made my butt look both big and flat? And tucking your jeans inside a boot seemed a bit to equestrian for lifestyle.
But then I got used to seeing them everywhere, and realized… Hey, skinny jeans are actually pretty great! I can show off my boots AND the bottoms of my pants aren’t salt-stained and sopping wet from Thanksgiving until April Fool’s Day. Now where did I park Halcyon, my Hanoverian mare? Cheerio!
So imagine my surprise when things shifted from skinny to straight leg. And then to the more wide legged barrel. And gasp, the horseshoe or the JNCO-inspired super wide-leg balloon pant.
After watching the (unintentionally) hysterical Instagram post from Evereve (linked below), I thought to myself, Are her knees broken? Is she walking with wet, invisible undies pulled down mid-thigh? Are these actually for sale? We musn’t with these pants.
(By the way, if you like a bad pants story, follow
on any/all platforms. She is my hero.)
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So I stuck it out with my basic, straight-leg mom jean.
Did I know I wasn’t pushing my sartorial limits? Yes. But I also didn’t look like a Yellowstone character after 16-hours of rounding up cattle.
However. This barrel-leg style pant has been “in” for quite some time. And you know… they are starting to grow on me.
Last month, I got my first pair from Gap (remember GAP!).
I’ll admit they do make me feel… a little Oompa Loompa-y. Or like they’ve been worn in by someone who takes a lot of barre classes.
I’d been looking for a pair of olive green pants. They felt good on my body, so I just went for it.
In general, I like them.
Except…
You know the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? The premise is if you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want some milk… and if you give him milk, he’s going to need a straw… and if you give him a straw, it’s going to be a paper one the dissolves immediately… and then he’ll have to become president to officially outlaw paper straws… etc etc etc?
These pants unleashed a similar chain reaction.
Because if you buy a gal barrel-legged pants, none of her shirts will look quite right with them.
And even when she does find the right top, she will feel like her outfit is missing some sort of “It Factor.”
So she will try it with that scarf trend she’s been seeing all over the internet.
But the scarf will make her look more Boy Scout than Chic Fashionista, and also the scarf is the wrong kind of fabric anyway (a stiff cotton) and won’t lay right.
So then she will start looking for silk scarves that will make her feel Parisian… even though the most Parisian she’s ever felt is the time she tried to make sourdough bread and almost burned her house down. (The lesson? Don’t store your starter in a plastic container in your oven with the light on, no matter what
says, because you will forget it’s in there and pre-heat the oven.)She refuses to give up on looking for a scarf, even though the good ones inexplicably cost $500. (I thought Hermes was a type of pet crab.) She will search Poshmark and thrift stores for a less-expensive scarf, and will instead buy a red and black cardigan she likes but doesn’t need.
And then, she will try the barrel legged pants with a classic gray sweatshirt from Java Moose and a flat brimmed corduroy cap from Red Raven (two northern MN coffee shops with great merch!) and will think… maybe this is the look?
Then she will think, Wouldn’t this be cuter with a collared shirt underneath? But she doesn’t have the right one for that, either. So she goes on Poshmark, where she buys an over-sized vintage mohair cocoon coat that isn’t seasonally appropriate, nor what she is actually looking for.
And then she will seem an Instagram post declaring skinny jeans are back, and then she’ll wonder if anything she owns will go with those.
Seriously… how do I style these pants?
I’m thinking a more cropped-style shirt? Or something tighter and tucked in? Ye Ole Gap Shoppe styled them like this… Looks great, but I’ll betcha dollars to matcha mochi donuts this model has not had two C-sections.
Tell me… Do you have barrel jeans/pants? How do you style them? Share with the rest of us!
I’m still refusing to wear hard pants so I’m no help.
Tuxedo jacket, no undershirt. Runway ready.