Oh The Torture

Jeans. A modern day necessity. Comfortable, familiar, versatile. Always the answer when you don’t know what to wear. And yet…

Jeans. Are. Torture.

It is nearly impossible to find the perfect pair. To find them, you quest. Hours, weeks, months…even years. You wriggle in to piles upon piles of different washes, cuts, styles. Boyfriend, weekend, skinny, curvy, boot cut, straight cut. Each more abysmal than the last.

The wrong jeans can make you feel fat, lumpy, short, boxy, disproportionate or lanky. A single pair of jeans can make you feel like a Kardashian sister while the next pair will make you think your rear is flat. You can find a pair that fits your legs but won’t go over your hips, or a pair that fits your legs and gapes open at your lower back. Are your legs unusually fat while your waist is little, or vice versa?

Pockets are impossible. Too little, or spread too far apart and your arse automatically looks 12 times bigger than it actually is. Some pockets are all blinged out with all kinds of uncomfortable and obnoxious hardware and sparkly rhinestones that make you look like a hooker or a thirteen-year-old with a bejeweled butt. Others have all this weird stitching, like the sewing machine had a mind of its own and went all rouge with that orange-y brown contrast thread. You know what I am talking about.

Forget about length. Why on earth is every single pair of jeans ever made created for the world’s tallest humans? Even the "short" or "ankle" lengths.  Honestly. You have to spend a fortune on a pair of jeans and then spend another $40 to tailor them? And what if you have them hemmed for heels or wedges but your feet freaking hurt so you wear some adorable flats? What happens then? I’ll tell you what. You ruin those perfect jeans. They drag on the dirty ground all day and get caught under your heel and fray and tear. Damn.

Even worse is the way those lovely, dark, slimming jeans leave behind that horrid dark blue dye on everything! Car upholstery, furniture, the inside of your white t-shirts, your underwear, socks and the worst? Your hands! No matter how many times you wash those jeans, by mid-day your hands have this horrid, dingy blueish tinge, like you have been dying Easter eggs or feeling-up a bike tire. Now that is sexy.

But then, just when you think you hate jeans, and yourself, and vow to never put on another pair in your life – bam. You find them. Perfect. Just the right color with a little stretch. They are like a miracle bra for your ass, slim your legs and fit your waist without having to lie down to zip them.  They make you feel like a sexy, unstoppable goddess. As you look in the badly light mirror in the dressing room, the scene transforms and you suddenly see yourself strutting down the street in slow motion, hair blowing, heads turning, construction workers whistling. It is a truly magical moment – when you find the perfect pair of jeans. 

I still haven't found my magical moment.

Hipster Owl by Michael Frank via Etsy

What do you hate about jean shopping?