There is good news for fast-fashion retailers, but not for parents or budget shoppers. It's time to buy a new, or rather 'old' pair of jeans.
Skinny jeans, which entered the mainstream in the 2010s and have since defined the decade’s fashion appeal for both men and women, are now considered passe.
According to Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., one of the most influential people in the industry, the world is heading into a new denim cycle where loose-hanging, wide-leg and flared jeans are big in demand across the globe.
Well not totally new, because wide-leg trousers were very much the fashion trend in the 1990s, following on from the bell-bottoms of the sixties and seventies.
“This is not the first time we’ve seen this resonating with consumers,” Bergh told CNBC earlier this week. “Cycles do come and go. And I think the pandemic definitely played a contributing role to consumers looking for a more comfortable, more relaxing denim.”
Bergh said Levi’s started to notice an increase in sales in these new loose-fitting styles of jeans when it launched two different fits early on last year. One was a pair of jeans that ballooned out at the bottom, and another that was high-rise at the waist and loose fitting.
“They’re definitely taking off, and it is definitely a new trend,” Bergh said.
Street fashion has over the years influenced new designs and established trends and even in the UAE several young girls have been spotted sporting these oversize denims.
Call them Mom jeans if you must, but they look like they are here to stay and dominate the fashion conscious in the future.
Mom jeans rank as the No. 3 fashion trend for apparel among female teens with baggy or saggy pants ranked No. 2, behind leggings which are continuing to hold their own.
Fashionistas using social media to promote their styles appeal to millennial users and encourage a change in their fashion outlook. Instagram looks to played a pivotal role in this as is has one of the highest followings of the younger fashion conscious
Surveys have revealed a significant spike in online browsing for the new jean styles, including “baggy/wide jeans” and “straight jeans,” while searches for “skinny jeans” were rapidly diminishing.
“Some people have said that this is going to create a new denim cycle, and we think that that could very well be true,” Bergh said. “The last real denim cycle was driven by skinny jeans. And that cycle lasted about 10 years.”
“I don’t think skinny jeans are ever going to go away completely,” he went on. “But clearly right now we are seeing a very strong demand for these looser fits, both the men’s side of the business, as well as the women’s side of the business.”
