- Skinny jeans have been ridiculed for years as Gen Z opted for baggier clothing.
- In a viral TikTok Gen Zers continued to pile on the style and said it should never come back.
As Gen Z continues to turn against skinny jeans, one model and fashion influencer has come to the defense of the divisive style, and hit back at those who have bashed the dated denim.
Skinny jeans have been a contentious topic for several years online, as some Gen Zers have ditched the tight apparel in favor of straight-leg fits and oversized jeans, causing a crisis among some millennials still clinging to the skinny look.
A recent TikTok posted on September 4 by VIAVIA, a fashion retail platform that caters to Gen Z, added further fuel to the fashion fire when they asked a selection of people which fashion trend "absolutely needs to die."
@viavia Its official…the skinny jeans a clear winner… maybe I will make a denim purse out of my old pair #fashiontiktok #trendthatneedtodie #fashioninterview #viavia #streetstyle ♬ original sound - VIAVIA.live
In the upload, multiple interviewees responded that skinny jeans were the biggest sartorial sin, and passionately shot down the look.
"If you're rocking skinny jeans, take that shit off, go to the thrift, go get some baggy shit," one interviewee said, as others said they looked especially bad on men, and one woman said she was trying to get her boyfriend to not wear them.
The video received 2.1 million views and over 5,800 comments, many of which wrote they were millennials still holding on to skinny jeans as a staple of their wardrobe.
On September 19, model and fashion influencer Wisdom Kaye posted a TikTok to his 9.2 million followers, directly addressing the video. The upload started by stitching VIAVIA's upload, before it cut to Kaye holding up a pair of black skinny jeans and black boots, and he reappeared wearing the items. Kaye went on to pose in a variety of oufits that incorporated different skinny trousers, including a leather pair and a gray pair.
@wisdm8 IMAGINE WEARING THESE
♬ original sound - Wisdom Kaye
The video received 2.3 million views and over 8,500 comments, many of which rallied around the inclusion of the much-debated denim, but Kaye didn't stop there. He re-uploaded the same clip to X, formerly Twitter, where it was viewed an additional 9.7 million times.
"I don't defend skinny jeans bc I love them but bc I think the hate is stupid," Kaye wrote beneath the video. "Ppl swear you can't look good in them when that's just not true, I admit typically they're not styled interestingly but the jeans themselves aren't the issue. Also baggy does not always equal good."
—Wisdom Kaye (@modsiwW) September 18, 2023
Kaye continued by writing fashion trends were accelerating quickly and "continuously becoming less relevant as everything is just kinda existing all at once" and suggested "hating on skinny jeans for being outdated is kinda outdated" in itself.
Multiple people agreed in the comments that it was more down to how they were styled, as opposed to the item itself being an issue, while others seemed baffled why skinny jeans received so much hate, or felt people were just pretending to dislike them to hop on the trend.
Back on TikTok, multiple viewers pointed out that baggy clothing was already a big thing in the 1990s, and those wearing loose clothing simply to stay on top of the current look may end up eating their words if tighter fits came back into fashion.
"All the people hating on skinny jeans are gonna be the first to jump on them as soon as they're trendy again," a viewer wrote beneath Kaye's video on the topic.
Much has been discussed about the evolution of fashion trends in recent years, as early-2000s fashion has become a preferred style among Gen Z, leading many millennials, who remember the styles' first time in the spotlight, to post about being surprised at how quickly trends cycle back around. Some may even be keeping hold of their skinny jeans in preparation.
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