I've been through levis, wranglers, eddie bauer, ll bean, calvin kline, talbots, cleo, rickis, a variety of bootlegger, jeans warehouse, american eagle, gap, old navy and finally reitmans (comfort waist)....I may have missed a few but you get the idea. My body was never really designed for jeans with my longish torso and stumpy legs but I can't say I didn't give jeans an honest try.
In the last 15 years, I've worked in an office regularly so jeans were really only for casual wear. I could squish the wobbly bits in to the less than forgiving, spandex enhanced denim and manage quite adequately.
In the last few years, I've transitioned to yoga wear (note* I have yet to transition to yoga) so evenings and weekends found me rocking the black yoga pants and co-ordinating black yoga tunic (and a hoodie in the cooler weather). As an active Granny, I was finally comfortable and fashionable!!
Then I read one of those "5 fashion faux pas that age women prematurely" blogs and top of the list was athletic wear worn outside of a gym!! You could almost hear my wobbly bits cry in anguish as they realized that I needed at least one "good pair" of casual pants...aka jeans.
Jeggings were out of the question...that's a whole 'nother blog post. So I set out to try some real jeans again. Shopping is limited in my small town so I hit all the regular stops and finding myself empty handed decided to try Old Navy. As I've aged, I found Old Navy a little too "young" for me so I stuck to buying my grandkids stuff there but rarely ventured into the ladies dept. After all, I'm pretty sure I was also intimidated by the fact that ladies sizes start at 00 and I was a little embarrassed to ask the cute girls where to find the "big girl" clothes.
But I was determined and so began the adventure. I took 47 pairs of pants into the fitting room and grunted and groaned my way in and out of every pair. NOTHING!!
I was starting to get hungry and dehydrated when I thought I'd cruise through the selection one more time before I gave up. Surprisingly, I spied a pair of charcoal grey jeans I had not noticed previously. They were sort of rolled up in a ball behind some distressing (cut up, dark rinse) jeans that I had decided I was not going to try. (Another blog post pending on "holes" in new pants-haha)
They looked like they might fit and they were soft and stretchy(ish) so I headed back to the fitting room. This is when the girl who was refolding all my cast off pants rolled her eyes.
It was like the universe aligned, the Heavens parted and Angels literally sang a Hallelujah chorus as I slid into those glorious pants!!
Of course the jeans were a return. They are not regularly stocked in my local store, but I could order more online. Which is exactly what I did. I drove home and ordered two more pairs of the ladies rockstar 24/7 jeans.
I was so excited to find pants that my body and I both liked that I did not even check the fabric content or washing instructions until after I had made my purchases. (22% spandex and 1% elastin...whatever that is.) I am just going to call it 23% pure joy!
I can hardly wait to go to the grocery store or fill up with gas now that I have these new pants and I'm confident that "rockstar 24/7" could be marketed as an anti-aging product.
Life is good!!
