Desperately Seeking Jorts
My week as personal stylist to a Gen Z client.
A few weeks ago my teenage niece stayed with me in the city. Being the cool, hip aunt that I am, I had ambitious plans for the various cultural excursions we would undertake during her visit. Those expectations, however, were quickly derailed by a chance sighting of Hailey Bieber wearing her current summer staple: jorts (aka jean shorts). If you’ve been following Instagirl fashion this summer or have any Gen Z prospective influencers in your lives, you probably know the ones to which I am referring:
During the summer of 2021, people bought denim shorts like hotcakes. Seasonal retail categories often have a year on, year off cycle, and last summer, while they didn’t disappear, denim shorts were slower to sell, and were, with some exceptions, underperformers to most retailers’ projections and expectations. This summer, however, they are back with a vengeance. From what I have seen anecdotally and as demonstrated by our model above, consumers are leaning into longer lengths and lighter washes with limited destruction (ie, distressing, rips and tears). I have previously gone on record as a fan of an awkward length short and I also own her sandals (big surprise) so to me, Hailey’s longer length jorts are overall a look I can semi-support as much as that might pain me to admit. I mentioned these Toteme long jorts in an earlier post and I have been going back and forth on these Loulou Studio ones as well. I would probably wear them with a button down cotton or denim shirt since her type of top doesn’t really fall into my typical wardrobe choices, but if you have those abs, why not. I am also still dreaming of this Toteme denim top and secretly want to make that full denim look happen but I wonder if this is one of those things that will never look as good as I imagine and should really only live in my mind.
This week, however, we were shopping for my niece, and, as with all clients, her needs don’t necessarily align with mine. She is heading to college this year, and wants to look cute and feminine and not like a mildly androgynous fashion girl (in my case, that ship sailed long ago). In addition, her body and her proportions are quite different from mine: she is tall, and not just tall for a regular person - she is old school supermodel tall with long legs. The goal wasn’t to simply make her into a copy of me; I wanted to ensure that she felt comfortable and like herself in her jorts, because this is a real-world example of defining one’s own personal style and figuring out who she is and how she wants to represent herself.
Our first stop was Aritzia. Not being their target demographic, this was my first time in the store. I don’t want to age myself by talking about the bass-intensive club music, huge groups of teens or the plethora of crop tops (oh wait I guess I just did) but there were a few other things that struck me about the shopping experience in the store. First, they had the most extensive jort selection across a wide variety of price points and silhouettes, which, if I were shopping for a teen on the regular, I would really appreciate. At the risk of sounding like an Aritzia informercial especially since they need no further promotion from me, I did not know that they carry Agolde, EB Denim and Citizens, some more premium brands that I have bought for multi-brand retailers in the past. They also stock a wide selection of Levi’s, as well as a few of their own brands, which help them hit the price and trend category easily. The second unique facet of the experience was the fitting rooms: most of them are tiny with no mirror so one is forced to leave one’s own room and enter the communal area to get a true sense of whatever item one is trying on. This might be common in stores that cater to the Gen Z crowd (again, I’m an old, I don’t know) but it reminded me of nothing so much as going to Loehmann’s as a kid with my mother. Overall, that was not my favorite experience (I insist that my aversion to sample sales is a result of Loehmann’s-based trauma, but we can unpack that another day), however, I can attest that the communal dressing room creates a highly social shopping experience, both with your peers and with the sales associates tasked with working the fitting rooms. With the pounding music and constant stream of customers, those associates have an intense job, but they were great at being engaged with the clients and giving knowledgeable, helpful feedback.
Of course, given that we were so early in our journey to find “the one,” we did what everyone does when they are looking for the perfect partner: we played the field. Our next stops were a few midtown department stores known for their extensive denim selections, although in this case we found very little to satisfy our need for jorts. Not having shopped that area in a minute, I am not sure if this was a case of the retailers having already sold through all of their inventory or an example of the insane retail calendar and how you can never find a seasonal item that you need in the season you actually need it - also probably a topic for another day. At this point, we were fully committed to our quest and did a full midtown circuit including another place I had never been: the Levi’s store in Times Square. (If you ever need someone to demonstrate their love for you, ask them to take you to the Levi’s store in Times Square during the summer. There is no greater sacrifice.) The store is huge and did in fact offer a wide variety in terms of jorts but, unfortunately, none of these were exactly right for us. If we went looser on the waist so that they sat lower on her hips, the legs rode up and created a weird unflattering situation. Alternatively, the ones that fit in the waist didn’t offer the baggier silhouette on the leg that we were seeking.
Disappointed but not deterred, we headed back downtown and went to Frankie Shop, one of my stops for more of the moment items. They did have a bunch of cute representations of the trend, most of which are sold through online, but it quickly became clear that the majority of the products cater toward a very specific body type and aesthetic and were not giving us the look we were searching for. At this point even I, someone who does this for a living, was nearing the end of my tolerance for shopping, and so, we headed back to Aritzia, thinking that on our first visit, we had been too early on in our quest to truly appreciate the offer there and feeling fully fortified in our knowledge of the complete jort landscape after our extensive search. We pulled almost every denim short that they had in multiple sizes and got to work. This time we were confident in our needs and with the benefit of our experience and the help of the aforementioned fitting room associates, we found the one. (Thank goodness, because I could not bear if we had gone through this whole endeavor for naught.) Special thanks to those fitting room associates for going back and forth with us as we whittled down four pairs of shorts that were essentially the same but felt “so different,” for at least twenty minutes. In an ironic and yet perfect end to this story, the jorts that we chose are actually meant to fit high on the waist and don’t have that long of an inseam, but we personalized. We went up a few sizes and styled them with a belt so that the effect is more like Hailey’s look below: still a longer length cutoff short, but not overwhelming or too fashion-y for a college freshman.
What I found to be the most interesting part of my experience styling my niece was seeing someone with different proportions and needs from mine personalizing their style and adopting a look for themselves. The ironic thing is that I have spent upwards of fifteen years working professionally as someone who buys predominately clothing for others (obviously there is more that goes into my job than “shopping for a living” but in its most simplistic form, that is one of the components). Typically in showrooms we either see the clothes on a model and then have to visualize how they will look on “normal bodies,” or we might be working with a specific client in mind and thus have a more exact idea of how the clothes will fit. Often when I visualize a normal body, I think about my own proportions (I am especially guilty of this at brands that I love personally) and consider how things will fit on a shorter person. Watching my niece try on pair after pair of denim shorts was the most edifying side by side comparison of all variations of a trend on a less familiar body. It was fun and heartening to see how game she was to try different things and not get discouraged when something didn’t work for her - a trait I think we could all learn something from. Our experience was a perfect illustration of how trends need to be adapted for everyone but also how fashion should be fun and experimental. As my friends and I have said many times throughout countless fashion emergencies, it is not rocket science and we are not saving the world; let’s just enjoy taking risks and trying new things, awkward length jorts and all.