Once a fantasy fashion playground for the one per cent, couture fashion week has found its way into mainstream media in recent years, in large part thanks to the collective obsession with seeing celebrities tottering towards the front row in improbable looks that cost more than most people’s life savings. (See Kylie Jenner’s lion’s head look from 2023.) But spectacles aside, the runway looks that transcend the runway and directly impact women’s wardrobes are almost always the simplest.
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Case in point: the look that has lived rent-free in our heads over the past month is not a Price on Application gown, but an unassuming jeans and jumper combo from Chanel’s pre-fall 2026 catwalk show, staged on a New York subway platform back in December. Model Bhavitha Mandava (who was, fittingly, scouted on the subway) hit the runway in a quarter-zip jumper styled with a lust-worthy pair of jeans that seemed to defy categorisation – they weren’t skinny or straight-leg, nor were they truly baggy. We’ve been calling this somehow-just-right hybrid silhouette the “skinny baggy”.
The more we looked (and we looked a lot), the more we noticed this same silhouette proliferating across the fashion landscape: from celebrities to street-stylers to stylish Londoners. Fashion plate Dakota Johnson wore hers with pointed heels and a cardi in LA, while Margot Robbie was snapped in London earlier this month in a turned-up pair styled with heeled boots and a black sweatshirt. This minimalist approach harks back to the stripped-back off-duty style of stars like Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow in the ’90s.
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The skinny baggy can be broadly identified by the following specifications: a mid or low-rise waistband that falls into a boxy, straight leg and ends with a slouchy, floor-grazing hemline. If you want to lean further into the Chanel effect, be sure to add a belt.
The beauty of this silhouette is that it combines the nonchalance and slouch of a standard wide-leg with the polish of a more tailored straight-cut jean. And while I hate to go down the “millennials v Gen Z” route, as a 30-something, it feels like a more grown-up spin on low-rise denim, which can feel a bit “Sk8ter Boi” for anyone who lived through the trend first time around.
When it comes to finding a pair, one option is to try a pair of straight-leg jeans (new or second-hand) and size up, to get that slouchier version of a traditionally close-fitting silhouette (I’m wearing an H&M straight-leg in a UK 14 in the image above, and I’m a UK 10). Exploring the men’s department is also worth a try – particularly if you’re on the taller side and looking for a longer, shoe-grazing length. For a readymade pair, brands like Cos and Weekday have offered up iterations of the baggy skinny in a range of washes.
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