I’ll start this week’s installment of “Thinking about:” by noting that I’m (more than) pretty skeptical of this style. Mom jeans? The first utterance brings up memories of laughing at that SNL skit. First glances have me thinking, “Well, of course it looks awesome on this fine, young model who is most certainly not a mom yet.”
But I’m curious overall about how the silhouette might look on my figure, and thinking this high-waisted style might work on me better than wide-legged pants do. Mom jeans typically aren’t skin-tight, and might either have straight legs, or a slight taper at the ankle. Most examples that I found are cropped, and if not, seem to be styled with a narrow turn-up. Light-wash denim is overwhelmingly the most popular color (as determined during my Very Serious Research), but I’m a sucker for black or dark grey denim at the moment (or, ahem, for the past several years).
Here’s some inspiration I found (and I have more on my Pinterest too!)
So if we’d like to make a pair of mom jeans at home, what are our choices for sewing patterns?
Megan Nielsen Dawn jeans: It’s been a while since a jeans pattern came out that really seems to generate a lot of buzz across the sewing community (those of us who obsess over the indie designers, at least), but Megan Nielsen’s new-ish release seems to have achieved that. It’s a high-rise, non-stretch denim pattern that gives you that tapered-leg fit and cropped length. But, the nice thing about this pattern, especially if you are a fan of pattern views, is that it comes with different lengths and leg styles. Honestly, I’m nearly sold on getting this for myself.
Pretty Mercerie Iwaki jeans: I. Am. Ob. Sessed. with the latest mini-collection released from this French fabric store. I want to make every single piece, I want to buy the coordinating fabrics from their shop, and I want to waltz around charming side streets in Japan while looking effortlessly chic. What’s stopping me? Umm, the patterns are in French (and time, money, my already gigantic list of things to sew, etc.). Recently Shauni from the Magnificent Thread made one of their patterns and declared that it wasn’t impossible, which bodes well for those of us who don’t know French but are handy with Google Translate.
Seamwork Tessa jeans: It seems that with the member-exclusive pattern variation, this design would get you closer to that sweet mom jeans look.
Vintage Vogue 2850 (from Calvin Klein): if you can get your hands on a copy of this, then you could make original mom jeans! I didn’t search extensively, but it seems like there are a fair number of copies floating around Ebay/Amazon/etc.
Or perhaps take the copy-cat route? I found several people bemoaning that we don’t quite yet have that 100% spot-on Mom Jeans pattern yet, so Katie from What Katie Sews tore apart a (well-loved) pair of RTW jeans that matched what she was looking to recreate and made a sewing pattern from that. It’s more of an investment (in time and money) and probably a bit more tricky than following a pattern, but could be a way to ensure that you get exactly the look you want.
How about you? Do you give a thumbs-up or say a big “NO WAY” to mom jeans? Are you also suddenly coveting a pair of blush pink Converse sneakers?