Forever in Blue Jeans.

I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this yet, but I’m a tad obsessed with fashion, design, and décor. I love reading about, thinking about, analyzing style. One of my favorite – stylish – bloggers writes an awful lot about clothes and packing. I’m always impressed with her resourcefulness and ability to travel light.

Inspired, I decided to take a cue from her while packing for my recent trip out to Cal-i-forn-i-a.

When I started laying out my clothes, I grabbed my largest suitcase. Then I thought to myself, No. You can pack a weekend suitcase for five days, Kelli. I know you can.

And, I did.

Best packing trick ever? Roll. Everything. It creates more room and helps cut down on wrinkles significantly. (Ironing is probably my least favorite chore ever so I try very, very hard to avoid wrinkles.)

Other big rule of thumb – brown or black. You have to pick one or the other. Now, I’m all for mixing and matching browns and blacks, actually. I don’t follow any of those “rules” that say blue/brown/and blacks have to stay separate. But, I do find, when I’m grabbing the one belt I’m "allowed" to take and trying to narrow down my jewelry and shoe choices, it helps if I’ve decided upon one or the other as a color base.

Now. I had a whole post planned in my head for this trip, one where I was going to chronicle each outfit I wore during the trip, explaining what I mixed and matched, and why certain things made the cut. As it played out though, my family and I did no sightseeing. There were apartments to look at, (many, many apartments) there were trips to Lowes to make, there were leases to sign, and paint jobs needed. There were trips to Public Storage units to make and Uhauls to load and unload. As a result of this, I ended up relying on a single pair of jeans for almost the entire length of my trip. So instead of telling you all about what I wore when, I’m going to go ahead and zone in on this denim, a pair of jeans I was hesitant to even try on in the dressing room but now can’t imagine my life without.

Here is a picture of me sitting on our week long rental’s balcony at sunset, rocking said jeans (naturally).

(I have no idea why this photo in particular is so large on the screen.)

Anyway. These jeans? They are part of Gap’s new denim line which debuted earlier this fall.

Before I go any further, I have to say something about the Gap. I remember clearly the day I first fell in love with that store. I’d hit a growth spurt at the start of 8th grade and NONE of my jeans fit me. They were all way too short and since the only thing growing seemed to be my legs, I began to get questions from my classmates, asking if I was preparing for a flood. My Mom finally took pity on my complaints, drove us to the fanciest mall in the area and steered me into the Gap. To my utter 13-year-old embarrassment, she asked a male clerk for help, explaining that I just needed longer jeans. While I was busy trying to not look mortified, the clerk smiled and said “oh, no problem. Why don’t you try one of our long sizes?” Off I went into the dressing room, size 4L in hand. From that moment on, I was smitten. The Gap made jeans that actually FIT ME. It was heaven.

And so I became a sworn Gap lover. Until, say 2005 or so. I don’t know what happened, (well, actually I have a clue – different CEOs, head designers, lost identity, etc) but the whole company kind of derailed. They were working far too hard to be trendy, their cuts weren’t right, I was a fan of almost nothing. Designer denim was in in a very big way anyhow and Gap jeans just couldn’t hold a candle to other options, unfortunately. In fact, I stayed away from all things jean/Gap related for years.

Then, this fall, I thought I’d give their new line a chance. I pulled a few options into the dressing room (it helped that I had a 25% off coupon) just to see what was what. Do you know? I was actually pleasantly surprised! The things fit well! They looked cute! I liked the different washes!

I ended up heading home – on two separate occasions – with two separate styles.
1.) The deconstructed skinny jean (no photos, yet. sorry.)
And
2.) The boyfriend jean. (Featured above and below.)

Here is a photo of me leaping like a mad woman while wearing said boyfriend jean on day #3 of my trip:

Gang. I LOVE every single thing about these jeans. They’re loose and baggy without looking you know, loose and baggy. (Read - sloopy.) They’re so, so comfortable and the rolling idea? ADORE. They worked especially well out West as I was able to adjust the roll to suit whatever the (sunny, warm, wonderful) temps dictated.

The flip side - seeing as I do not live on the West Coast – is that I do not anticipate wearing these jeans quite as much around Boston come winter. In my humble opinion, they look cutest when they’re rolled somewhat and because they’re loose, you’re better off with a form fitting shirt on top – lest you look loose and baggy all over. (So circa grunge, 1992.) The other little hiccup is they are too big to tuck into boots, a must for New England winters, but that’s what the skinny jeans are for.

Whew! That's a lot of denim talk! Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get a chance to wear everything else in my suitcase, huh?

On a different note, here is a shot of my handsome little brother:


When I asked him if he liked my new jeans (and began to explain how much I loved the rolling to whatever length I wanted feature) he nodded and said: “Huh. Well, they look like jeans, alright. They’re not really any different from the pair I’m wearing.”

Hrmph. MEN.

Also, here is a shot of the sunset. Because it never gets old to me, being able to see the sun set into the Pacific. (Never happens if you live near the Atlantic, you know.)