Fashion after 50

Skinny jeans are everywhere, in bright colors, like fistfuls of pick-up-sticks with legs in them. Cheery. Fun. Great with boots and bulky sweaters.

I want some.

But my mother’s voice sounds a warning: “teenage grandmother,” she’d say, rolling her eyes when we’d pass a woman (and there were lots of these in Florida) dressed in clothes my mother thought would be far more appropriate on a girl one quarter the woman’s age.

I am not my mother.

So I take a look at my favorite shop (the one with “thrift” in the name), and find two pairs of skinny jeans in what I think are my size. One pair is blue denim, the other black – disappointing, as what I really want are the crayon-colored legs I see in the magazines, but I don’t want to go on a full-out shopping spree, so I settle.

These are pretty ridiculous pants. I have to point my toes to get into them, then pull them up as if they are tights. You could tear a fingernail doing this—even a short one, like mine. Then I have to inch them up my legs. This reminds me of the girls in high school (not me) who would lie down on the dressing room floor to zip up pants they had no business wearing. I was so disdainful of that sort of thing. Fashion. Puh.

I begin to wonder if these skinny jeans are worth the trouble, and whether they’ll look like “they’re painted on,” another of mom’s favorite put-downs, once I have them on over my, well, healthy thighs. Yes, me and Beyonce. I have to tug to get them over my rear end. And then there’s a little adjusting of curves before I’m entirely comfortable.

But once they’re on: they look good. They feel fine. I like them. My boots go over them without looking like I’m trying too hard, with jeans tucked into my boots, as if to say, “look at my boots!” I check for muffin tops: sigh of relief. It is a little dicey if I squat down to pick something up – these particular skinny jeans could be higher-waisted and that would be good – but other than that, they’re great.

The second pair doesn’t fare as well. They’re also skin-tight, in a good way, but only up to the knees. Then there’s a lot of extra fabric and a funny gap at the top in the back. Plus, the fabric feels chintzy. They remind me of the jeans your mother wants you to buy – usually Wrangler, as I recall – that are just not cool at all, but you can’t explain how they are uncool. Something about the stitching, or the cut, something invisible, only to be felt.

Still, I have one pair of skinny jeans. I feel like I’m 20 again.

Mom, that’s not a teenager. Plus, I actually own a pair or Wranglers. And I like those, too.