Every so often, someone at work, or someone on TikTok brandishing a tiny microphone, tells me that skinny jeans are “so back”. Whenever I hear this, my eyes glaze over. I’m not wearing them, okay? I don’t care if everyone’s scouring Vinted for old Kate Moss for Topshop.
With all of that said, there is one denim trend I will be partaking in this Spring, and it’s not too far removed from the skinny jean. I’m talking about the skinny bootcut, which everyone from Bella Hadid to the off-duty models of fashion month have been co-signing as of late.
The skinny bootcut – tight with a slight kick flare at the end, often low-rise but not always – has all the benefits of a skinny jean (they show off your boots, look great on the bum) but they’re so much cuter. As a person of short stature, skinny jeans tend to make me look even shorter, whereas skinny bootcuts somehow make the whole outfit more compact. I feel like a tall person, but miniature (fellow short people, you’ll know what I’m talking about). And taller people: well, you look good in anything.
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TheStewartofNY
Aside from the jeans popping up on the street-style circuit with increasing regularity, we’ve also seen the silhouette edge its way onto runways this past season. See: Alex Consani in those skinny flares at the Dsquared2 autumn/winter 2025 show, or the itty bitty bootcuts in Acne Studios, Chloé and Coperni’s autumn/winter 2025 collections. Though I’ve always been a staunch proponent of baggier styles (and I’m not the only one, obviously), the tide appears to be shifting. Skinny jeans don’t have to be of the drainpipe variety, basically.
So no, I might not be returning to the skinny jeans of yesteryear, in which my legs felt like they were being slowly smothered to death in the name of fashion. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be embracing this spring’s coolest style, the skinny bootcut, which at least gives me an inch of breathing room.
