Tight, body-hugging jeans are nothing new. By the time I began grappling with them, circa 2008, they’d long been associated with James Dean’s sex symbol status and the rock-rebel style of punk icons like Debbie Harry.

Still, when skinnies, as we called them, came back into fashion in the aughts, I was both shocked and confused. Here was this fit, so daring and so specific, that clung to the curves of our legs like cellophane.

For me, uncomfortable didn’t even begin to describe it. As someone whose whole life had been anchored by denim (my dad is the former LA retailer Ron Herman; jeans are in our genes was the joke), I felt unmoored, questioning not only my weight but the shape of all my tops.

I wrote about my denim anxiety in this same space just shy of 20 years ago, declaring skinny jeans a “tricky little trend” and wondering how I’d deal with it—or if it would even last.

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, one of the best straight legs on the planet today.

Rùadh’s Olympia jean.