Forever in Bluejeans

Sometime in my mid-20s, I stopped wearing jeans.

I’d spent my youth romping around in baggy hand-me-down Gap jeans, their knees stained with grass. As a mopey teenager, maturing under the twin moons of skateboarding and hard-core punk, I favored dark skinny jeans that hugged my calves. Emerging from college, I saved up for a plywood-stiff pair of raw denim from the French label A.P.C. I wore those slim-straight jeans into oblivion, until holes sprouted at the pockets and they grew feline-like whiskers at the knees.

And then one day, I just quit them. As I slid into the work force, I became preoccupied with being taken seriously. I had a beard but looked younger than my 22 years, my face still bearing the aftershocks of acne. Jeans, to me, underscored that.

I migrated instead to dress trousers, cotton in summer, wool in winter. They were wider than the J.Crew norm, but I had only black and navy. The whole idea was for no one to notice them.

I vacillated between crewneck and V-neck sweaters, and cycled between striped shirts and solid ones. But for years, those pants were a constant.

A few years ago though, I tired of them. It was as if I had eaten the same coconut-flavored yogurt for breakfast for a decade until one day, even the thought of it made me retch.

I decided my wool pants were a stylistic void, a dark wormhole where something more varied, or just something worth even a split-second of closer inspection, could’ve gone instead.