A New Generation of Women Designers Is Reinventing the Slim Look of American Denim
Of course, skinny jeans didn’t just last; they dominated for more than a decade—I dealt with it by avoiding them in favor of foolproof 501s, more slim than skinny—until denim’s reliable 10-ish-year pendulum swung in the other direction, toward wider legs and looser fits. So why a comeback now? Part of it, of course, is the simple desire for newness. One never needs a new pair of jeans every season: They’re jeans; they’re made to last a long time.
The rumblings of a return to skinnies started when Miuccia Prada showed little low-riders in Miu Miu’s fall 2024 collection. In truth, it was too soon and too tight, even for an audience who wore compression-level stretch denim not that long ago. Today, I suspect we’re picking up where we left off right before the sweatpant-centric pandemic seemed to slam the door on anything clingy with a restrictive fit.
Flash back for a moment to Hedi Slimane’s ’70s-inspired spring 2020 collection for Celine, which landed in stores just as COVID hit. That type of jean—high on the waist, pipe-shaped down the leg, and authentic-looking (i.e., made of 100 percent cotton)—is now having a renaissance and, compared to baggies and barrels, feels powerful and smart. I loved it then and I love it now.
It makes me think of Nili Lotan’s Joan,
It makes me think of Nili Lotan’s Joan, one of the best straight legs on the planet today. “I don’t like to use the word skinny,” says designer Jac Cameron, who has the niche and increasingly popular Agnes jean in her line, Rùadh (pronounced “roo-ah”). A mid-rise style with a button fly, lean leg, and a little slit at the hem’s outseam, Agnes is trim but “definitely not a legging vibe,” Cameron explains.
The game changer: The fabric is 75 percent recycled cotton and 25 percent postindustrial waste. “It’s got this great body to it, this incredible hold—it’s gutsier, heavier, and looks like an authentic rigid.”
Ossou (“oh-sue”) designers Nina Khosla and Talia Shuvalov agree. “It’s not about the resurgence of the spray-on jean,” Shuvalov says. “It’s about creating something that’s tailored and refined, that still has a bit of air around the leg but offers you this slim effect.” Ossou’s Noon jean—a non-stretch high-rise with a cinched waist and more tapered leg—evokes the Lady Levi’s jeans of the 1930s, which the May 1935 edition of this magazine declared the thing to wear while vacationing in what was then called the Far West.
(I repeat: Tighter jeans are nothing new.)
But while these new jeans are all technically slim, they are absolutely not the same. Even within the trend, there’s real variety, which is so much more inviting than the deep sea of same old skinnies we got swept away in last time. “The whole thing is just straighter,” says Aflalo’s Yael Aflalo about her best-selling Brontë. It’s extremely lean top-to-bottom compared to Noon and Agnes.
We’ve kept the more classic denim measurements—narrow waistband,
“We’ve kept the more classic denim measurements—narrow waistband, longer fly—and fine-tuned the shape of the leg,” she explains. (In denim-speak, classic typically implies a 501 fit. That Hailey Bieber’s been seen wearing bum-hugging vintage Levi’s recently is not a coincidence.)
“I think it’s easier for people to take a slimmer silhouette back than it was for them to accept it the first time around,” says Jamie Haller, a 2026 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist whose namesake line has two exceptional formfitting styles: the Slim Stovepipe and the Low.
Also—and this is important—a lean silhouette is now far from the only option. Haller still has a Slouch and a Bell Crop, for example. Slim, barrel, bootcut, wide-leg, low-rise, high-rise, flared…. We’re living in a moment where all fits can be heroes. There’s one more important shift in the landscape that you may have noticed: Many of the brands making the new cuts are led by women—a welcome change from the male designers dominating the all-skinny world of the 2010s.
Haller, who worked at Guess and NSF before launching her own line, and Cameron, who cut her teeth at Calvin Klein and cofounded AYR, are now running their own shows, and they’re not alone: An entire generation of creative hard-workers who embarked on their careers during the premium denim boom of the early 2000s—and even made those male-gaze skinnies of the 2010s—has now stepped into their own.
Starting a jeans line is one thing
But starting a jeans line is one thing. Nailing it—as these women have—is something else. Their edge: A closeness to the fit that men, no matter how skilled or legendary they may be, simply cannot own. Aflalo wear-tests everything. Cameron is in direct communication with her customers a subjective eye is insightful
The connection converts—and finally, with great enthusiasm (relief, even), I’m embracing the change.
Source: www.vogue.com
