Flare Play: 9 Pants Your Skinny Jeans Should Be Scared Of

Oh hey, flared pants, long time no see! The classic silhouette is finally back from the dead, out to avenge the skinny jeans that killed it. All over the place, there are people throwing around terms like “boot-cut” and “bell-bottoms” and “wide leg,” and for good reason. With all of these names for all of these seemingly similar styles, however, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. So let’s break down what’s what in the world of flares.

Wide-leg pants begin to taper away from the body at the very start of the leg. This style began, strangely enough, from Navy uniforms, as the loose leg made the pants easy to remove when wet in the unfortunate event someone fell overboard. These from Eckhaus Latta and this Adam Selman pair are both good examples of this style (as well as the perfect seafaring companions, apparently).

Bell-bottoms start to taper away right at the knee. Their first notable appearance was in the '60s, when hippies and peace protesters started modifying their normal peg pants by cutting the outer seam up to the knee and sewing in triangle-shaped colorful fabric inserts. If you’re not the free love, DIY type, these Mother of Pearl guys are a good place to start.

Boot-cut pants taper just at the bottom of the leg. They were originally created for cowboys and coal miners to accommodate, well, boots being worn under the pants. No longer just for rough-and-tumble bad boys, Marques’Almeida and Suno have you covered.

Check out the slideshow above for more covetable iterations of the skinny jeans' more dimensional sister.