Jeanius

I have been on the hunt for a new pair of good-jeans-to-wear-with-heels for a few weeks now. Sadly, it's not going too well. Jeans must be the hardest article of clothing to get right, partly because it's so bloody difficult for girls to find a pair that fit around the hips and bum and don't gape at the back of the waistband. Then there's the possibility that, even if they fit you so well it's as though they were made for you, the arse/waistband of them will go completely out of shape after a couple of wears and render them obsolete. Another issue for me is the massive array of styles and washes to choose from in nearly every single shop; I have to try on every pair in my size for fear of overlooking My Perfect Jeans and frankly there's only so many times you can try to turn your head 180° to see how your rear end looks in a particular pair before you either get a serious crick or start to hate your ass with a vengeance. Of course you can't just go by what's nice on somebody else, but I have nonetheless been known to squint at other girl's asses from the bus in an attempt to identify the brand of denim that they're wearing if they look to be the same build as me.

This has led to me trying on every last cut [and of course wash] of jeans that Diesel, Oasis, River Island and Topshop produce. Diesel jeans just don't suit me, one of those things I can't *quite* put my finger on but they're just a bit meah. Some of Oasis' jeans look like they could be lovely on me but the 8 is just that bit too big. I seem to be between sizes in River Island and every pair of jeans I try on in there either make my legs look like tree trunks or viciously magnify my saddlebags. Topshop jeans just make my ass look weird, I think they sort of flatten it.

Since I could find nothing that suited me on the high street, I decided to cast my net wider to take in the premium denim ranges. I did my research in Brown Thomas and Harvey Nicks, then bought a pair of bootcut Seven For All Mankind jeans on fleaBay around this time last year. They didn't have my leg length in BT and then in Harvey Nicks the sales assistant was a total b*tch [when I asked for a size down from the jeans I had brought into the changing room I got a cocked eyebrow, was looked up and down and then asked "Really? Are you sure? Well, ok."] so I felt no guilt. Unfortunately, there are no nice or actually authentic jeans in my size up for sale on fleaBay at the moment. I don't want to buy from an internet store because the pictures they have up of their merchandise are just stock photos; at least with fleaBay you can see [or request] pictures of the jeans you want to buy to check out what the fading and whiskering and whatnot is like.

In a fit of madness and desperation last Friday week, I tried on and purchased a pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans in BT. They were shockingly dear, but I was able to justify it on a cost-per-wear basis. Ehem. As I was punching in my Visa PIN number, the girl at the till asked if I'd tried them on. I said I had. She said [as she was putting the receipt in the bag] "That's fine, did the girl in the fitting rooms tell you they stretch up to an inch with wear?" Ah, no, no she didn't, she was busy telling me that Seven jeans only come in a 34" leg and assuring a yummy mummy that her ass looked, like, totally great in this pair of James jeans [it looked squished], but I was in a rush and said I'm sure they'll be fine. I was genuinely thrilled with them until I got them home, tried them on, and discovered that (a) they fitted me *perfectly*, if they stretched by an inch they'd actually be too big, and (b) they made my ass look huuuuuuuuge. Like J-Lo huge. It was totally bizarro.

I shall be returning them this evening.

After the disappointment [and my Visa's relief] of the episode with the "they were just unsuitable" Citizens jeans, I was thrilled silly to find a pair of Seven jeans in with a 32" leg [shocker] while browsing in BT2 last Tuesday evening. Now, they were the same cut and colour as my fleaBay ones but a size smaller than them [which makes them two sizes down from the ones in Harvey Nicks, so ha to you, missus!]. Even so, they fit perfectly, and where I have taken up the fleaBay ones to wear with flats, these would be ideal with my heels. Re-sult!

Only... I am not *100%* sure about them. The fading on them is a bit more pronounced than on my own pair and I'm a bit worried about the sizing aswell. Don't know whether to keep them or not. Will the darker denim fade a bit with washing so that the contrast is less pronounced? Do they only fit me now because the people who tried them on before me were totally bet into them and stretched them and will they actually revert to being teeny tiny when they're washed? Tune in tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel...