Flare and Boot-cut Jeans in The Late 1980s, and 1990s
In the late 1980s, during the rise of acid house and the Second Summer of Love, bell bottoms became popular again in women's and men's fashion in Europe spreading to the Americas, South Africa, Japan and Australia. They were initially reintroduced as boot-cut (also spelled "boot cut" or "bootcut"), which meant tapering to the knee and loosening around the ankle to accommodate a boot. Over time, the width of the hem grew wider and the term "flare-leg" was favored over the term "bell-bottom" in marketing. Similar to boot-cut hems, the trend began in Europe and spread rapidly around the world. Today, both the boot-cut and flare-leg pants remain popular both in denim and higher quality office wear. In menswear straight-leg also gave way to boot-cut looks, again initially in Europe, and has made its leap into flare-leg for officewear, the same as what has happened in womenswear. In most cases men's boot-cut and women's boot-cuts differ. Women's jeans are tight to the knee and then flare out slightly to the hem, while men's styles are usually flared/loose all the way from crotch to hem. The bell-bottoms of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s can generally be distinguished from the flare or boot-cut pants of the 1990s by the tightness of the knee.
Read more about this topic: Bell-bottoms
Famous quotes containing the words flare, jeans and/or late:
“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?
Who’s sorry for a gnat ... or girl?”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“When children dress like adults they are more likely to behave as adults do, to imitate adult actions. It is hard to walk like an adult male wearing corduroy knickers that make an awful noise. But boys in long pants can walk like men, and little girls in tight jeans can walk like women.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the “very best society” that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of “dressing” to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)