I knew I was officially old when a 22-year-old intern tsk-tsked me for how I wore jeans. It wasn’t when I noticed my first gray hair (hey Steve, I see you in the shower! I plucked you!).
And it wasn’t when my knees started cracking when I went upstairs. It happened one Tuesday when Lauren, our office intern who is approximately 728 years my junior, stared slack-jawed at me as I zipped up my jacket to leave for lunch. “Oh,” she said saintly, with that patronizing patience usually reserved for toddlers and grandmas. “Oh. You wear your jeans like THAT?” Impl: I had just entered a bold new era of life where mini-retirees in the office questioned my denim game like I’d been caught making my own butter instead of jeans-ing like a real woman.
Jeans-ing like a person who had been wearing jeans with authority since circa 2002. “Like what?” I responded, genuinely offended. Because objectively I WAS wearing my jeans like a normal human being.
Straight-leg vintage Levi’s, boyfriend button-down slightly tucked, ankle boots.
It’s a timeless—if also extremely lazy—uniform I could put together with my eyes closed. And yet, according to Lauren, there was something mortifyingly improper about my jean combo. Something so hideously antiquated that it sounded like something my grandmother would wear. “Like… skinny jeans?” I asked, because that’s about the only inappropriate way to wear jeans that I can think of.
She shrugged at her thighs. “Just… regular?” She waved her hand vaguely at her pants. “How people are wearing them now? TikTok?” Interns telling me to watch TikTok. Welcome to subs. “I’ll look into it,” I lied through a clenched smile.
Because side note: did you know my hippie aunt thinks I should treat my seasonal allergies with essential oils? THERE ARE LEVELS TO THIS. Later that night, after a glass of wine and cursed humility, I did some digging.
I booted up TikTok on my phone and scrolled until my fingers numbly thumbed through jean after jean of TeenTalkTech advising me that not only had I been wearing jeans wrong for the past two decades, but generations of women before me had too. If you want to feel old, scroll through TikTok’s #jeansedition hashtag and soak in the intense judgment for wearing your jeans anything other than: Higher on your waist Curled under (instead of folded over) Uncut, unwashed, and with back pockets too small to fit your hand in. Hold my phone while I go change into something that fits me RIGHT NOW.
It was during my intensive research that I realized: leggings used to be pants, toddlers used to wear socks with holes in them as boots, and now teens are telling me that every conceivable way that I, and millions of other women have been wearing jeans is “wrong.” Every type of jean that was previously-good-looking IS STILL PRETTY GOOD LOOKING. Bootcut? Revived.
High-waisted? Trending. Skinny jeans?
Are being worn in dank basements all over America as we speak. Skinny jeans weren’t “wrong.” TikTok was just…. presenting them as such because millennials don’t wear skinny jeans anymore, and Gen Z needs things to hate on millennials about. Jeans trends don’t actually die, people.
They’re repurposed and rediscovered and remixed by future generations who latch on to them so hard the original trendsetters cringe. Because just like that boyfriend shirt you saved from the rag bin because it was Hole's logo and now you’re in your 30s and it still fits somehow, jeans come back around. There’s just a thinGen-Zvernium between when trend dies and is rediscovered.
As I slid into despair over jeans facts I hadn’t known I couldn’t live without, I spotted one of the older styling hacks—a woman tucking the waist of her bootcut jeans into a pair of tall boots and cinching the top with a skinny scarf knotted underneath. You know those jeans? The ones I refused to believe still existed until I saw them on TikTok last week?
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The ones your grandma still has in her closet from the ’90s? Totally in style. And based on recent research?
Taking advise from high school girls about how to wear jeans is only going to end in embarrassment and regret. After some digging through the receipts of jean history, I came to a conclusion: my Gen-Z coworkers aren’t wrong about everything. While it might feel rebellious in the moment, mom jeans aren’t“making a comeback.” They’ve been here this whole time, just waiting for tween influencers to rediscover them on their mom’s Pinterest boards.
Which brings me to my rediscovery of jeans: the mullet tuck. This TikTok-approved trend is exactly what it sounds like—a shirt t-shirt that’s tuck-less in the back, but tucked into your jeans in the front. It takes the sloppymess jeans trend we know and love and turns it into a statement silhouette that actually works with everything in your closet.
How to Wear Jeans TikTok Style (& What to Ignore) Straight-leg jeans with jackets and blazers for work. Skinny jeans with oversized tees for weekend brunch. Bootcut jeans + cute sneakers for running errands.
I’ll never say never to trying new ways to wear jeans—I love a good fashion challenge. But after nearly two decades of rockin’ the straight-leg look like a pro, I’ll be keeping my Grandma’s jean shirtskirt at home where they belong. “HEY,” ZOE INTERRUPTED ME FROM SCRIBBLING ON MY NOTES APP AS I SAT AT MY DESK, SILHOUETTE AGAINST THE BLUSH SUNSET BLEEDING THROUGH MY OFFICE WINDOW. “LEAN IN!” She plopped down next to me on the hardwood floor and unfolded her long limbs to gesture at her screen. “Look at this! You HAVE to try this jean hack.”Her TikTok filming hand waved between her and my laptop screen, which showcased a teenager fiddling with her own skinny jeans. “What are they doing?” I asked, skeptical.
She scooted closer to face-quilt me. “It’s a_mullet tuck.” Her lips pursed up and down seductively as she said the last two words. “What?” My brain couldn’t compute how rocking jeans tugged higher than my natural waist was remotely revolutionary. “You’ve been saying it this whole time!” She sighed dramatically, but I shooed her backseat stylist career away. “What are they DOING to their jeans?” I repeated. “They’re tying them,” Zoe said simply, as if that answered my question. Ohhhh. Tying their jeans up so they poof above their waists, creating a gathered puff of extra fabric above their belly button. “And that makes it a mullet?” I deadpanned.
Honestly, rocking your jeans high and tucking your top in the front is basically a dad-style Sunday in the Midwest. But I humored her and watched the teen on screen cinch her skinny jeans at the waist with a black scarf. To my astonishment, it actually looked really good.
The jeans still hit high, but the scarf cinched in her midsection created a leaner, taller silhouette that still worked with the oversized blouse she wore.
The pocket-size blazer I was wearing sat perfectly on my hips, and my shirt still got tucked in enough in the front that it didn’t look like I forgot my shirt was tucked and rushed out the door. I snapped a screenshot of the trendy teen’s jeans emergency hack and slid out of my desk chair to try it for myself.
Bonus points: since most of us probably don’t have a skinny scarf materialize out of thin air to tie our jeans up with, I used my belt. It worked just as well and is already on-brand for anyone who wears belts with jeans on any given day. Adjustable denim belts are also a genius hack because, unlike a regular belt, you can use the little buckle slider thing to tighten your jeans exactly how you like them on days you don’t want to recreate Phoebe’s FriendswoodBindle.
Moral of the story: don’t listen to your kids about everything. Sure, they can teach us how to navigate the latest apps on our phones. And God bless their tiny lil hearts for trying to teach us how to dress like a literal toddler isn’t a big ask.
But the TikTok jean saga has taught me this: if there’s one thing I know about jeans, it’s that they’re here to stay. Trends will come and go, but the trusty jean—the original youth-rebel garment—is eternal. So let the kids cuff their jeans however they please.
Firing squads for cut-offs will be my generation’s legacy.
