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Why Jeans Have Been Cancelled From My Wardrobe

For most wardrobes, jeans are a staple, the go-to item of clothing for all but the most formal of occasions. The word ‘casual’ can hardly be mentioned without visions of stone-washed, distressed/ripped jeans, then there's also ‘smart-casual’, which calls for a darker denim, maybe even black if you want to stress the ‘smart’ bit of the dress code. 

Yet when I think of slipping on a pair of jeans, I get vivid flashbacks of yanking them halfway up my leg, to then switch to the well-practised method of doing little jumps to wiggle them the rest of the way up. On a day that I've happened to have eaten or drunk anything; the final step would be lying on my back and sucking in for dear life to get the waistband to meet. The chance of the zipper going up without the button being closed is slim to none.

I consider my body to be fairly healthy, and pretty average when it comes to weight, height and size. And yet I still find jeans incredibly hard to shop for, because - like most body types - I don't fit into a mould, which is something I'm sure I have in common with most women.

Even though we are in an era of curves and the word ‘thick’ is a compliment, most brands still fail on the promise of making clothes for the average woman. After years of searching for my ‘perfect fit’ - so I could avoid seam lines imprinted on the sides of my thighs and a waist line that was too tight but still gaping at the back - the level of discomfort that came with wearing jeans just didn't seem worth it to me anymore.