Women's fashion is famously unforgiving on its target audience. And while we've managed to unshackle our waists from whale-boned corsets - unless you what to wear one in which case, you do you - we're still subject to plenty of social conditioning when it comes to what we should and shouldn't wear. Hands up if you've recently suffered stilettos or Spanx? My point exactly. At least the majority of us aren't wearing either of those all day, every day. But what about something more basic like jeans? You might not have interrogated your denim wardrobe recently but a new social media parlance might have reached you nonetheless: standing jeans.
Don't know what they are? You almost certainly have several in your wardrobe. As their name might suggest, standing jeans is the term used to describe a pair of jeans that is so tight around your, ahem, vital areas that you can only wear them if you're planning to remain in a vertical position. People have been posting videos of them or their friends slumped awkwardly in a chair, their torso bent and their legs stuck out like a mannequin's, with the caption: 'When we have to sit down in our standing jeans.' They're often using their hands to cover the waistband because, whisper it, they've had to undo their top button.
Obviously, these girls are being glib. But what these videos illustrate so clearly is the discomfort women put themselves through in the name of looking a certain way.
Because standing jeans aren't good for us physically or emotionally. I have several pairs. And by standing jeans, I mean jeans that are simply too small for me. And that's ok! But what's not ok is that, before writing this story, I probably would also have said that they're my most 'flattering' jeans. They're extremely high-waisted, designed to hug your smallest point and stretch out your legs. They're fantastic. But they're also comfortably two sizes too small. Instead of doing a strange dance to get in and out of them, bending, jumping and wiggling around until that button is fastened over my flesh, I would be much better off putting them out to pasture by giving them to a friend in favour of a pair that fits properly, even if the number's bigger on the label.
I inadvertently did exactly that earlier this summer. Shopping in Uniqlo, I spotted a pair that was a bit of me: high-waisted, cropped at the ankle bone and loosely straight-legged. I took the plunge, trying them on two sizes up from the majority of my denim wardrobe. Guess what? They fit like a dream.
From now on, I'm not wearing standing jeans or sitting jeans. I'm just wearing jeans.