As a woman who is, scientifically speaking, the same height as Lady Gaga, I’ve always struggled with what jeans to wear. Skinny jeans make my legs look like they’re actually suffocating and baggy jeans tend to swallow me whole. There’s a particular type of denim cut, though, that I’ve always gravitated towards–although I’ve never known what to call them. Part baggy, part bootcut, I’ve recently taken to calling them “slacker jeans,” and they’re pretty much all I wear.
The best way to describe slacker jeans is bootcut, but not in that classically tight, early Noughties way. Rather, they’re slouchy, with a slight flare – the type of jeans that are custom-made for pulling on when you’re in a hurry, or throwing a big brown leather jacket over. Baggy bootcuts are, in my opinion, the epitome of casual cool. And, though they’re most often associated with menswear, women look killer in them too (as I’ve said before, give us more menswear in women’s sizes!)
Edward Berthelot/Getty Images
Raimonda Kulikauskiene/Getty Images
I’m not just plucking these jeans out of thin air. This particular cut has been slouching its way down runways on both sides of the fashion binary more recently. From the cowboy-ish kick-flares that were all over Louis Vuitton’s autumn/winter 2025 runway, to the puddling hemlines seen at Fendi, Dsquared2 and Ami’s spring/summer 2025 shows, hip-skimming slacker jeans dominated menswear collections. But they’ve crept into womenswear, too. From floor-scraping denim at Dries Van Noten’s autumn/winter 2024 show to Natasha Zinko’s pre-fall 2025 collection, the humble flare has gotten so slouchy the hem is practically under the shoe.
Fortunately, this type of baggy bootcut is also all over the high street, if you know where to look. My personal affordable faves are these Bershka bootcuts (size up for maximum slouch), or else the loose bootcuts available at Weekday. The ultimate pair, however, is Eytys’ take on the trend (if you’ve got the coin to spend) and, obviously, all manner of men’s jeans from Diesel. Big and boyish puddle-soakers have never looked so tempting.
