Flipping through the Boston Proper catalog this morning, I saw that they’re featuring Not Your Daughter’s Jeans (little trademark symbol I don’t know how to make).
The above are my daughters’ actual jeans. They are seven years old. I would not want to try and wear their jeans, considering I can barely get my arm into one of the legs to turn them right side out when I need to wash them.
Of course I get what the brand is trying to do–appeal to Formerlies who, if they wore their teenage daughters’ jeans, would see their floppy postpartum belly skin splooge out over the top, their butts flattened into nothingness, and enjoy that oh-so-flattering piano leg thing that happens when women with actual thighs and hips wear pegged jeans. (See much-loved post on jeans.)
I went to their website, and there are videos from women talking about why they like the jeans. “These look fabulous. They hide my little belly; I can walk out with pride now…You know those moms, I don’t mean this in a mean way, but you know who you are, you look perfect and skinny no matter what you wear, like you never gave birth? Well, now I can go out to the park and look like one of you guys,” testified a woman named Anna R.
And this is where I have one of those Grrr/Sigh/AARRG! moments, where I’m pissed, then sympathetic, then frustrated about the Formerly Condition, all in the space of 11 seconds.
Grrr: Why does a smart, self-aware, confident and successful 43-year-old woman buy into the idea that I have to look like I haven’t given birth when I have–to twins, no less? The Hot Mom prize is the one who least looks like she’s a mom. It’s unfair, I abhor it, and I won’t participate, dammit! Where are those cargo pants with the drawstring??
Sigh: Let’s face it, those drawstring pants make me look like a beanbag chair. I don’t want to look like something blobby and squishy that could be ordered monogrammed from the Pottery Barn Teens catalog whose sole purpose is for kids to climb all over. Yeah, no, not sexy.
AARGG!: I’m stuck in the middle again. Might Not Your Daughters Jeans (trademark!), with their promise to lift and tuck, be just the ticket? Perhaps. But there’s something about a brand that positions itself so specifically against something else–something that I’m not 100 percent ready to cede to the past tense–that makes me want to avoid it. Formerly as I am, complete with the postpartum mom bod, disappearing ass syndrome and an enduring love of high Lycra content in my denim, I am not ready to wear jeans called Not Your Daughter’s Jeans until my daughters are at least 15.
Yet another example of how Formerlies are in a rotten position, pitting our standards for our appearance against our life experiences and the choices we have made, choices (such has having kids and or that amazing pumpkin cheesecake last night) that we wouldn’t trade for anything, let alone the chance to look awesome in our teenage daughters’ actual jeans!
Thoughts about this weird adult tween thing? Awkward, isn’t it? Anyone try Not Your Daughters’ Jeans? Anyone have teenage daughters that are coming into the whole young-hot thing, just as you’re easing into the whole Formerly Hot but still hot in your own way thing?
October 1, 2010 at 11:50 am
On a Windows OS: ALT+0169 gives you ©; ALT+0153 gives you ™; ALT+0174 gives you ®.
In HTML: ® for ®, © for ©
See http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_entities.asp for a complete list.
October 1, 2010 at 11:51 am
Of course you can’t see the code in my comment–oops. Go to the link, though. 🙂
October 1, 2010 at 4:20 pm
NYDJeans are the BEST JEANS EVER! I have 6 pairs and they’re not bad in the way you’re worried about. They’re purely made for an actual woman as opposed to being made for a teenager. They’re made not to have your belly that has given birth spill out over the waistband. They’re made for your butt not to feel like it’s following you around with its own zip code. They are flattering and incredibly comfortable. I LOVE them more than words can say. And this formerly bod needs spandex in those jeans. I say go out and try them on. In a size smaller than you usually wear, cause that’s how they run. I love ’em.
October 2, 2010 at 11:56 pm
What Lynne said: I agree completely!
October 4, 2010 at 11:54 am
Great jeans but way way to expensive! The store near me has them for 128.00 a pair!! That is stupid!
October 21, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I haven’t been willing to try them on, because they’re priced too high. I’ve been reasonably happy with the Gloria Vanderbilt “Amanda” jeans I bought at Costco, though.