Add to Cart: Ratio-Fit Jeans for Butts of All Sizes

Add to Cart is Vanmag’s new weekly style column, in which assistant editor Alyssa Hirose offers honest takes on current trends, local designs, and whatever new clothes/jewellery/shoes she’s talking herself into (or out of) buying.

Skinny jeans are officially dead. And unlike many other millennials, I will shed no tears. The material isn’t exactly known for comfort (“I can’t wait to get home and slide into a nice pair of jeans!” said no one, ever) so making denim as tiny and tight as possible really borders on cruel. And if you happen to have an ass—as many of us do—good luck finding a pair that fits your butt without gaping at the waist.

I also hate not being able to take off my pants without taking my socks off, but maybe that’s a slightly less relatable sentiment.

Anyway—good news, they’re dead! Straight-legged and wide-legged denim is back, with structured materials triumphing over stretch. That’s something that the local designers at Decade Studio have embraced since 2019, when they founded the new label centering around the concept of ratio-fit denim. Their jeans take into account the actual shape of a human person (imagine!) and aren’t made with the non-biodegradable elastic that makes other jeans stretchy. That doesn’t mean they have no give at all—the Decade site says the jeans should mould to your body after a few wears, kind of like wearing in a new pair of shoes. So you will still have those inevitable few days of the button-up struggle, but it’s all part of the process. 

More exciting, still, is their new release of inclusive sizing. Just last week, the brand expanded to include sizes 25 to 50. Previously, their sizing only went up to 36—as do these Topshop jeans, while these Everlane jeans go up to 33 and these Levis are available up to a whopping 32. Some of these brands offer different styles in larger sizes and charge more for them. For reference, this 2012 (sorry, it’s the latest one avail—what could scientists possibly be researching that’s more important than pants?) Maclean’s story says the average Canadian woman’s pants size is 33.

So Decade’s 25 to 50 jeans are a step forward in making quality style accessible to everyone. It kind of seems like a business no-brainer. (Why wouldn’t you want more people to be able to wear your clothes? Could it possibly be… elitism?) My current favourite is their Bonnie tapered jeans, which are a tapered version of their best-selling straight-legged style—apparently, I’m not ready to give my ankles too much room to breathe, yet. Decade jeans aren’t cheap (these ones are $243), but I’d certainly rather have one pair of these than the 7 pairs of American Eagle skinny jeans I’ve had since high school. 

Goodbye, skinny jeans. Long live the straight-leg. And low-rise jeans, I’ll see you in hell.

The Look: Decade Studio’s Bonnie Tapered jeans
The Price: $243
Where to Find it: decadestudio.com
Where to Wear it: Smashing toxic style norms, buying a bagel, walking down a city street listening to “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield