My Quest for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

Have you shopped for a pair of jeans lately? There is no quicker way to make yourself feel ‘old’ than shopping for a pair of jeans. Apparently, Madison Avenue and every designer on the planet feel the only suitable jeans for women my age are the ‘mom jeans’ that I found everywhere. ‘Mom jeans’ have roomy thigh and butt areas, with a waist as high as your rib-cage. I do not need ‘mom jeans’!

My quest for the perfect pair of jeans began when I received a pair of ‘low-rise’ jeans as a Christmas present. I tried them on and wore them for about an hour before deciding they weren’t for me. I felt like I had to continually pull them up, even though they already were up, and the flared-legs flopped around my ankles with every step I took. Not only that, but that inch of middle-aged flab around my stomach hung over the top of the waist band, jiggling with my every movement. Now, I have seen younger women wearing low-rise jeans with their stomach flab hanging over the waist-band and knew this was not attractive. If it wasn’t attractive on a younger woman, it certainly wouldn’t be attractive on a woman my age. Face it, no one should be exposed to something like that!

So, I went to the store where they were purchased and naively asked to exchange them for the ‘Classic Cut’-style that I had purchased there only a year before. The twenty-something clerk, looking at me as if I were a dinosaur from the past, informed me that the ‘Classic Cut- style had been discontinued. This I didn’t understand since they were ‘Classic-cut’. I mean, doesn’t the word ‘classic’ imply that they are continually in style? I tried another approach. “Do you have any jeans that are straight-leg and have a normal waist?”, I asked hopefully. “No” she replied with a slight hint of exasperation in her voice. She added “maybe you should search on-line”. At that point I requested my money back and began what would turn out to be a quest for the ‘perfect’ pair of jeans.

I went from one mall to another, spending hours looking through the racks and piles of jeans. Below the waist, low-rise, and very low-rise were all that I could find. Finally, I found a store that had Levis. I breathed a sigh of relief feeling confident that I would find the classic 501 button-fly jeans. Guess again! Even Levis had the ‘below waist’ styles! The jeans that were at the waist were all boot-cut or flare-leg. Not a single, pair of straight-leg jeans to be found! My beloved Levi Strauss had let me down!

Leaving yet another mall empty-handed, I wondered to myself if this wasn’t some kind of omen. Is someone trying to tell me something? Have I reached the age when jeans should no longer be a part of my wardrobe? Am I destined to wear ‘mom jeans’ for the rest of my life? Discouraged and disheartened, I sat down at my computer to begin my cyber-search for ‘the perfect’ pair of jeans.

First I tried all of the national chain stores with no luck. I broadened my search to include companies that bombard me with catalogs. L.L. Bean and Lands End stocked the ‘mom jeans.’ Other companies that I searched offered jeans with elastic waistbands. This was unacceptable! I began to think that I should search Ebay under their ‘vintage’ (a.k.a. old) clothes category.

I finally tried Victoria’s Secret and, to my surprise, there they were! I found classic straight-leg, normal waist jeans. They even had a ‘touch of Lycra’ for comfort. Not only that, but they were on sale for $25! This fit-in perfectly with my 80's sensibility. My quest had ended! I quickly placed an order before the style was discontinued.

My next shopping trip will be for a swimsuit. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Finding one will be easy, right? I mean I’ll just go to the mall, find a style I like and I’m out the door - right? Oh who am I kidding?! Here I go again!