Nothing fueled the social media (read: TikTok) feud between Millennials and Gen Z like skinny jeans. There wasn’t a real feud, by the way. Just self-selectively loud folks on both sides.
As a member of the former generation, I’ve always associated men in skinny jeans with scene kids or emo kids. More on that later.
In every generation, rebellious youth swing their sartorial pendulum far. You can’t deny that this causes the sartorial middle-ground to shift even just a little, and even for the masses.
Perhaps you weren’t wearing skinny jeans in the aughts. But you were likely ditching baggy pants for slim ones. Even the Bond of the aughts ended up in unrealistically slim tailoring.
Men in Skinny Jeans: A History
When flipping through vintage style, from a historical perspective, denim pants go as far back as the 1920s. Tightly fitting-pants, meanwhile, proliferated in the 1960s. At least, tight pants, as we know them today, did.
Working-class men wore denim as workwear. Teddy Boys, a rebel movement in the ‘50s, incorporated workwear into their style.
Then, Elvis wore “drainpipe” jeans, which were essentially that era’s skinny jeans. They weren’t nearly as tight as the ones in the aughts, and they were higher-waisted. However, the hems were higher, similar to the aughts fits.
It wasn’t until the ‘60s mod scene, which incorporated slim-fit trousers into their suits that slimmer pants became mainstream. Mod guys paired their slim trousers with a boxy jacket to create a more dynamic look.
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