Project Jane: Jeans

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Cousins Diana, Terry, and Jessica embarked on Project Jane: Jeans.

Project Jane: Jeans, which is so important that it merits its own typeface, was the conclusion of a stressful holiday week in which I discovered I was no longer fashionable. Granted, I had never thought I was particularly fashionable, but now I realized that over the last few years while I hadn’t been paying attention, I had tiptoed past “not fashionable” and was stumbling perilously close to the border of “truly embarrassing to be seen with.”

Jeans were not something I concerned myself with, normally. They were something to be put on when I didn’t need to care about what I was wearing. But lately I’d been forced to conclude that unless my jeans were being dried overnight at high heat by evil elves, I had outgrown some of them and needed at least one new pair.

Usually I buy my jeans at a low-end department store, and occasionally I buy men’s jeans. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t care what size or style jeans I buy, as long as they fit comfortably. And by comfortably, I mean large enough so that I can sit down, stretch, and remove without outside assistance. The stores that I go to tend to have a few shelves of jeans, all in the same style, and mostly feature brands that you can find at your local Sears.

Project Jane: Jeans actually began a few days before Thanksgiving, when I accompanied my older sister and her husband to the Wrentham Outlets. In the interest of saving time, Ann had printed out three maps of the outlet stores, put each person’s name on their own map, and highlighted on the maps the stores each person wanted to visit.

My map had only one highlight, while Ann’s had several.

“Do you have anything highlighted on your map, or is yours basically Ann’s map?” I asked her husband, Rob.

“I’m mostly just following along,” Rob admitted.

“He needs new jeans, though,” Ann said.

“I need a new pair, too,” I mentioned.

“Oh, mine are great. These are Calvin Kleins, but I got them at Marshalls for cheap,” Ann said immediately. “Look, these are low rise and bootcut.”

I looked, and suddenly it dawned on me that jeans were more than scraps of denim wrapped around legs. Apparently while I’d been on a fashion break, jeans had become multi-faceted and sprawling in ways I hadn’t even imagined. Bootcut? Low rise? Yipes!

I was suddenly seized by the desire to own a real pair of jeans. Jeans that would add to my wardrobe, and not merely stretch it out until the next laundry day. Imagine the possibilities!

Well, a few hours into the shopping trip, I was sick of imagining the possibilities. I’d tried on about 20 pairs of jeans, and evidently I did not have a jeans-ready body. The low rise jeans felt uncomfortable to me, and I wasn’t keen on buying a whole new set of underwear just so the waistband wouldn’t stick out of a new pair of jeans. And the ultra low rise jeans? Good lord, a bikini wax was mandatory accessorizing for those.

Even the “relaxed” fit was too tight in certain areas where I felt too much tightness might decide the question of whether I wanted to have children someday.

At one of our last stops, we hit the Levi’s store. Levi’s was a brand I was familiar with–in fact, the last pair of jeans I’d purchased had been Levi’s. But apparently the stores I shopped at didn’t carry the bulk of what regular stores had, and I was stunned by the vast sizing and styling options available.

Misses jeans ran in even numbers, and the Levi’s outlet had about 4 different numbered styles for the Misses jeans. However, even within each style there were variations of short, regular, and long, and occasionally different fits (slim and relaxed) and rises (normal, low, ultra low). To top it off, certain other styles were only available in junior sizes, which only ran odd, but had the same variations available. And of course, some sizes and styles came in different colors, but not every size and style.

Eventually I gave up, and sat outside the fitting room waiting for Ann.

Rob, who had found his jeans in the 2nd store we’d visited, sat beside me.

“Are men’s jeans this complicated?” I asked him. “I mean, do they have the short, regular, low rise, ultra low rise stuff?”

He thought a minute. “Nope. They just have the waist and inseam.”

Ann came out of the fitting room. “What do you think of these?” she asked. They looked like all the other jeans she had tried on–dark blue, bootcut, low rise.

“They look good,” I said. I admired her body’s ability to fit into jeans. Obviously she hadn’t inherited the genetic mutation that my body had.

She bent down and examined her back. “Does my butt crack show?” she asked.

“No, looks fine,” I said.

She studied her reflection in the mirror, and then went back to try on another pair.

“Is this size better? It seems tighter,” she said.

“Get this pair,” Rob said immediately.

I frowned at him, and then looked at Ann’s jeans. “Well, these crinkle a little bit more in back,” I said. “I think the pair before was better.”

“Well, I don’t know. They’re not as good as my Calvin Kleins, but they’re not bad.”

She changed jeans again, and came out wearing another pair.

“Oh, I like these,” I said. “Get these.”

She said, “These are my Calvin Kleins.”

“Why are you trying on jeans you already own?” I said. By now it was nearly 8pm, and we hadn’t had dinner yet.

“Just to compare,” she said. She did a few squats and stretches, and then went into her fitting room.

She emerged with either the same pair on, or a new one. I couldn’t tell. By now we had seen so many jeans on her that I was beginning to suspect she was just wearing the same pair, and going into the fitting room to giggle quietly to herself before coming out to show us what she was wearing.

“Get these,” I said. “These aren’t the Calvin Kleins, right?”

“No,” she said. “I tried these on two times ago. But I guess these look closest to my Calvins. I’ll get these.”

“I still like the tighter pair,” Rob mumbled.

While she changed back into the pair she had entered the store with, Rob and I contemplated a cricket staggering slowly across the floor. After a while, I said, “Why is Ann buying a pair of jeans that looks exactly like the pair she already owns?

Rob shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. From his reaction, it seemed clear that he hadn’t really thought about it, and clearly, this was why he slept better at night than I did.

My cousins took me shopping a few days later, and in their own version of Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, they dragged me to The Gap, Banana Republic, Express, Limited, and too many other mall stores that I feared.

I nearly fell over at some of the prices–I thought $30 was expensive, and the jeans we were looking at were over $100. Worst of all, none of these jeans seemed to fit any better than the ones at Wrentham, and the best fitting jeans I’d tried on this day were a pair of men’s jeans at the Gap that extended about two feet past the end of my legs.

Depressed, I said, “Maybe I don’t need new jeans. I could just wear what I have now. I mean, they’re not broken or anything.”

Shocked, Terry eyed my jeans. “Oh, Jane,” she sighed in pity, “tapered legs are so 80s. You NEED new jeans.”

Back to the search. How in the world had Chris been able to stand being seen with a tapered-legged wife? I didn’t know, but I was determined to prevent his shame from occurring again.

Jessica picked another pair of jeans off the shelf. “Are these sophisticated?” she asked. “Would Alice wear them?” Alice, my other sister, was apparently the yardstick by which I would be judged.

I was in the fitting room, studying possibly the 30th pair of jeans that I’d tried on, and told Terry through the door, “My body is just all wrong.”

“Don’t worry, Jane,” she counseled me. “Buying jeans is hard. It’s a long process. We’ll get through this!”

Cousin Diana, who had split off shortly after reaching the mall, returned loaded down with shopping bags as we exited the store.

“We can’t find any jeans for Jane,” Terry reported to her.

“They’re all too low,” I said. “I just want regular jeans that fit at the waist.”

“Maybe we should try New York and Company,” she suggested. “They have jeans for big butts.”

By now I was so demoralized that I didn’t even flinch at this, and started walking toward New York and Company. Behind me, the cousins studied my butt.

“Jane doesn’t have a big butt,” Terry defended me.

“No, but maybe she can use the extra butt material for her waist,” Diana pointed out.

“Only if they’re sophisticated,” sang Jessica.

We marched into New York and Company, where the cousins quickly mobilized to search through the jeans collection. There weren’t many pairs, but the pairs the store had were all different sizes and styles, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to figure out the system on my own.

Experienced in the ways of the jean, however, the cousins kept a constant stream of jeans coming toward me in the fitting room. Eventually we found one pair with a waist that wasn’t too low for me, and a fit that was still large enough for me to feel comfortable but not so large that the cousins would reject it as “man-like”.

I stepped out of the fitting room, and the cousins approved.

“I still wish the waist was a little bit higher,” I said, pulling at it.

Diana rolled her eyes. “Oh, Jane, that is so out. All our jeans are low-rise, and this pair isn’t even that low.”

Terry joined in. “Yeah, your old jeans were way too high. I don’t know why you wear those.”

“Dudes, my jeans may be high, but you know what?” I said. “I noticed that after Thanksgiving dinner, all of you were lying around the living room with your top button unbuttoned, and I didn’t have any problems with mine.”

They chose not to dignify my comment with a response.

Getting back to the problem of my current jeans, Terry said, “Anyway, Jane, these jeans are on sale. Only $22.50!”

“That’s a great deal,” Diana agreed.

“Chris will think they’re sophisticated,” Jessica said.

With this appeal to my cheap side, they knew they had me.

I bought the jeans, thanking my cousins profusely for their help. I haven’t worn them yet, but at least I can rest easy in the knowledge that I, Former Tapered 80s Girl, now own a pair of bootcut jeans. And the next time anyone tells me I’m not fashionable, I can whip them out of my dresser and display them proudly; these jeans that cost me two full days of sweat and anxiety, and only $22.50 on sale.

Posted by: ssjane | December 7, 2004 | 6:00 pm
Posted in: This Life