Skinnies can pull off anything...?

I went into a couple of stores yesterday on my afternoon walk, not really looking for anything, though I did wander towards the jeans section in both stores. Needless to say, the selection was pretty much the same. If you walk around with even half an eye open, you'll have noticed that the jean trend right now seems to be those high waist oversized, sort of baggy jeans. Typically with short tops. Which to me isn't a very appealing look, but it got me thinking about the weird and wrong ideas we seem to have about fashion.

I think this certain baggy look is fashionable because it plays into a pseudo-feminist angle, saying don't wear tight sexy clothes for the men, just wear comfy baggy stuff instead. Now, that would be a great idea if most girls weren't just rushing to buy this sort of baggy outfit because it's a trend. And of what I've seen, the goal still seems to be looking hot, but like you're not trying kinda hot.

Which...if you're shopping based on your Instagram and TikTok feed is doomed from the get-go, as that's the definition of trying.

Anyway, back to the baggy jeans. As I was browsing, I started considering the girls I know who go for that look, and while most of them don't look bad per se, they don't look great either. That's probably because baggy oversize jeans are hard to pull off and only work for a small number of body types. Most just look dumpy and stocky, alas.

But you don't have to look like that, even if you have the wrong body type for baggy jeans, if you're skinny enough. Because in our very wrong approach to fashion, a slim figure still seems to be the golden ticket. The get-out-of-jail-free card for any and every bad outfit.

It's common to think that you can "pull off" these oversized jeans because you don't look fat in them. Except. Obviously your fat's not gonna show through, if you're not fat. That doesn't mean you're rocking the look, just that... you know, that's how your body is.

It's interesting because this golden ticket of slimness is very pronounced in the fashion industry's attitude towards women who are on the plus side. Now, we seem to exist in this stubborn state of denial. If I wear clothes for skinny people, that will somehow make me both a skinny woman, but at the same time also a confident fat woman. What kind of logic is that?

For years now, you see these chubbier women trying to squeeze themselves into "slim girl" outfits because this stupid culture's convinced them that it's mean and offensive that those outfits don't flatter them.

I don't normally use third-party photos, but I wanted a better illustration of what I mean. Searching crop top and baggy jeans brought up dozens of hits, all with the same general tight white top, deep blue jean combo. source

Well of course they don't. They don't flatter most skinny girls. But they think they do because they're slim (and most of us have such a shit fashion sense that we think so too). But the point of an outfit isn't to look slim or sexy or whatever. Those seem to be the two major goals in shopping for girls my age.

And they're both misleading. The question, when trying something out at the store, shouldn't be

Does it make me look fat?
or
Does it highlight my butt or my boobs just right?

That's zooming in on such a tiny aspect of an entire outfit that messing it up is practically guaranteed. The question should be,

Does this highlight my natural resources? Does it work with my natural construction or against it?

If more girls asked themselves that, you wouldn't see half as many of them wearing that same high-rise baggy jean and tight 90s top combo. Because it doesn't flatter most of them. The only difference is, the reason why the fashion industry has succeeded in selling ugly trend after ugly trend is this elitism of skinny women. It's great, if you're skinny enough, you think you've pulled the outfit off and get to feel smug. And if you're not, it gives you something to feel bad and insecure about. Either way, the house wins.

You don't.

To answer my own question, I don't think skinny women can pull off anything. There are some advantages, sure, though those are fairly modest if we're really talking about actual style and glamour. In the long run, it seems to me that regardless of their weight, women are being cheated and preyed upon by the fashion industry. And as long as we hold on to old timey fashion dictums like this emphasis of hotness and slimness, then we'll just keep being played.

Would you say you have your own style? Or are you following the trends?

PS: There's nothing inherently wrong with following the trends. As long as you maintain a realistic idea of what you actually look like and which trending outfits would look well on you. And no, I don't mean a realistic idea of your weight. I mean your bone structure, the general shape and angles of your construction.