Skinny Jeans On The Cheap

One of the perks of working in a hardware store is getting to wear jeans and comfortable shoes everyday. Don't get me wrong, I love getting dressed up in pencil skirts and heels, but my feet and back are loving their current gig.

The one downside to wearing jeans everyday is that I needed more pairs of jeans to fill out my rotation. When I started at Lowe's I had only 2 pairs of skinny jeans and 4 pairs of flared or bootcut jeans. Being the slave to fashion that I am (har har), I only wore the skinny jeans while the others sat in the drawer, untouched. I tried to wear them, but I've found that once I get used to seeing myself in a certain cut of jeans (skinny, in this case) it is very hard to "approve" other silhouettes on myself.

As much as I would have loved to just drop some cash on new jeans I knew that wasn't in the cards. But I did have some perfectly wearable jeans and a trusty tailor at my disposal. So after a little pinning and a lot of sewing I had converted my old jeans into skinny jeans. TA DA! Obviously if you have some sewing skills and a machine that can handle denim, you can skip the tailor and save even more money. This solution works in several situations:

- take dated jeans and turn them skinny, like I did
- if you've lost some weight take the opportunity to slim the legs AND take in the waist, for a double dose of skinny
- if you're just jonesing for some new skinnies, grab a pair of jeans from a thrift store and have them skinnied, for less than the cost of a new pair - as long as the waist size and rinse/color make you happy you're good to go

If you try to do this allow me to make a suggestion. Bring a pair of skinny jeans you already own to show the tailor. It is very hard to pin the pants tight enough during your fitting and you may have to return them to be taken in again. This happened to me and thankfully the tailor corrected the mistake at no extra charge. But if I had taken a pair of pants they could use as a guide this would have saved me - and the tailor - an extra step.

Come on now, get to skinnying!