Jenn v. Sarah: Tapered Trousers

Jenn’s thoughts:
I love that designers have been “mixing it up” in the pants department over the last few seasons. Heck I even purchased a pair of skinny jeans last fall (something I vowed I’d never do. A vow I kept until I could no longer deny how cute they looked tucked inside high boots. I can’t resist anything that looks good with boots). However, there is one particular pant that I just don’t think should be messed with – the work pant, or as people insist on calling it, “the trouser”. Look, nobody in their right mind gets any particular thrill out of buying or wearing a classic trouser. They are designed to blend in, to go with everything, to be effortlessly professional, and to fit you during your skinny months (spring and summer) and your “hibernation” months (fall and winter) without making you feel self conscious. They should flare and flow perfectly over your sensible heels, sit just right on your hips, barely skim your thighs and camoflage anything remarkable about your rear. They are blissfully practical and irreplacably classic, but I am sorry, they just aren’t meant to be trendy. Good try, oddly-contorted model, but you aren’t going to trick me into thinking that peg-leg “trouser leggings” are the next step in office fashion.

Sarah responds:
It’s hard for me to defend these pants because due to a little something we’ll call “hips,” you will never find anything of a tapered cut in my closet. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate this look on other people, and well, I am a big proponent of the “if you can pull it off, then you should be wearing it” philosophy. (I would like to note that this philosophy does not carry into body contortions. Seriously. What is this model doing?) I love the idea that “work pants” can be different and stylish… and not the same thing we’ve been looking at since the early 80’s.

(photo courtesy of Nordstrom)