The perfect pair of jeans.

Last year I started back into my love/hate relationship with jeans. I go through phases when I don’t like jeans and don’t wear jeans. But last winter I decided that I really needed some good jeans, so I started looking.

I have never been a ‘big’ jeans gal, no pun intended, because I’m 5-feet-tall. So getting jeans involves hemming them,

and this involves really liking them enough to motivate myself to take them to my tailor and try them on,

get them fitted and then go pick them back up.

And jeans aren’t supposed to be like that. Jeans are All-American casual pants. Cowboys wear jeans. I’ve always longed for the day that I just slip on a pair of jeans in a store, they fit perfectly, and I wear them that day. I’ve dreamed of waking up in the morning, going to my closet, seeing pairs of jeans and just sliding them on. I’ve dreamed of jeans being so inconsequential, so normal to my wardrobe, that I don’t even think about having cool jeans anymore.

These are the dreams of a 5-foot-mom… I’m sure most of you are scratching your heads right now; well stop scratching and thank your lucky stars that you are in the middle of the bell curve! You’re normal size! Jeans fit you, you don’t know your tailor on a first-name basis, he doesn’t ask about your kids… be thankful:

YOU ARE NORMAL.

So last winter I began my quest for not a perfect pair of jeans, but some nice, durable pairs of jeans… simple right?

I went first to a mom’s party at a local jeans store/boutique down the street from my home. There were great jeans there, but none of them fit me well. And these jeans were all over $100 a pair.

$100 for a pair of jeans? I know that people spend that on jeans nowadays, but why? However, my visit to this boutique was good because it made me focus and realize what I really wanted:
a cool pair of jeans that fit me well and that I could (GASP) possibly wear off the rack.

I went to many stores and bought a couple of pairs of jeans… that I then got hemmed.

But I didn’t LOVE them.

So then I thought. And thought some more… Who makes jeans? Who started making jeans a long, long time ago…

Hmmm…

Levi’s !!

But where do you find Levi’s? I didn’t even know. I googled it…

Sears?

So I went to Sears. They had a lot of Levi’s. I found my size- cool! But then I saw a huge area devoted to petites- yey! I almost ran across the aisle, looking, looking, I found my size in a petite (meaning shorter). I started getting excited.

Then I saw the mother-load… the jackpot tag of jeans: petite AND short.

Are you kidding me?????!!!!!!!!! I didn’t even know they made petite AND short (even shorter than just petite). My heart was racing as I walked to the fitting rooms. I wanted to run, but that would have looked weird. I was so excited- the possibility of jeans that would fit me and wouldn’t need hemming… and I liked them!

I got to the fitting room and tried them on. I looked at myself in the mirror and they fit PERFECTLY! I just grinned at my reflection. I turned around, looked some more and just grinned, because I had reached the holy grail of jeans:

the jeans you just throw on and they fit.

Levi’s has me, they had me at ‘Hello’. Go back to basics and what do you find? You find what you want.

Now, I can even go online and buy my size and know that they will fit. This is jeans nirvana!

I’m wearing them right now