How to address your feelings about flares

A somewhat confronting trend.

I hated flares for the longest time.

Skinny jeans, cigarette leg, boyfriend fit, wide leg… ANYTHING was better than flares.

My mum used to make me wear flared jeans because she said they were more flattering. I scoffed at this as a 10 year old. “I don’t want flattering mum, I want whatever’s in whether it suits me or not.”

Then she’d force me into Esprit and make me buy a boot cut, if not full on bell bottoms.

So much resentment built inside me, until recently, when flares emerged out of their cave of uncoolness to make a stand once again on the runways.

Ellery was the first one to bring flares back to my attention in their breathtaking Fall ’15 lookbook.

If being lame because your mum dressed you for so many years teaches you anything it’s this: flares are strictly a no go zone.

But then I open my eyes wider (Google helped with this) and realised that House of Holland, Tom Ford, Celine, Kenzo – they were all doing the flare!

I was dumbfounded.

On my next lunch break I dived in head first.

I snuck out to David Jones, grabbed the Ellery pants I knew I couldn’t afford and tried them on anyway. 

The David Jones staff didn’t look pleased with me as the bottom of the pants dragged under my feet and halfway down the dressing rooms. I am about as tall as a garden gnome, and accordingly, I’m afraid I’ll have to stick to wearing skirts and admire flares from afar. Very afar.

However, if you have legs longer than mine then I congratulate you. Stop holding on to 2007 when you knew for a fact that you were definitely not going to be seen at the school disco in anything but skinny jeans. 

Wear flares. They are fabulous.