The most anti-ageing jean is finally back! As Kate Moss steps out in skinny jeans, SHANE WATSON reveals how to wear the Noughties staple now without looking dated

Look away now if you love your slouchy jeans. Take a deep breath if, after a few years of being assured that skinny jeans are Officially Over, you did a big clear out at the end of March. Because, it's beginning to look as though skinnies are making a comeback.

Oh yes. The leg-clinging, ankle-gripping cut that was the standard go-to style in the noughties turned up on the autumn/winter 2024 catwalks — and not just at any shows, but Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Prada's little sister Miu Miu.

Then, right on cue, the jeans style that was consigned to fashion Siberia six or so years ago in favour of wide-leg styles, got the sort of endorsement money can't buy — a paparazzi shot of Kate Moss, out shopping on a sunny spring weekend, wearing skinny-fit jeans with a vintage Vivienne Westwood top and Pretty Ballerina ballet flats.

Well, well. Some would say that's the firing of the starting gun and the moment the countdown to the return of skinny jeans really began.

Kate Moss can't get dressed without shifting the fashion barometer. She's generally at least six months ahead of the curve and her fashion antennae is flawless; in short, no one can quite chalk this up as a meaningless event.

Kate Moss was pictured out shopping on a sunny spring weekend in the Cotswolds last month, wearing skinny-fit jeans with a vintage Vivienne Westwood top and Pretty Ballerina ballet flats

A model wears Miu Miu skinnies on the autumn/winter 24 catwalk

Meghan Markle wears Frame's Le High Skinny for a casual sushi dinner with a friend last month

Back in the early noughties, skinny jeans and black ballet pumps was one of Kate's signature looks and 20 years on, she's feeling skinnies and ballet pumps all over again.

None of this is absolute proof that the roomy styles which have gradually replaced skinnies are for the chop. It's not a cast-iron guarantee that by October we'll all be back in spray-on, knee-cap-defining denim. 

But throw in the fact that top models Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, and Hollywood stars Mila Kunis and Jessica Chastain have been spotted in narrow stretch jeans lately, and that public interest is already moving in that direction (searches for the term 'skinny jeans' on the John Lewis website have increased by 281 per cent since early March), and the return of the skinny is looking like more than a slim possibility.

How you feel about this news will depend on whether you're a genuine convert to looser cuts or whether you still harbour feelings for the jeans we all wore for over a decade.

Those of us who've just got used to baggy jeans — boyfriend jeans, carrot leg, flares, palazzos, cargos, barrel legs ... anything but narrow skinnies — will be horrified.

But great swathes of women over 50 will be punching-the-air happy, because, for them, nothing feels or looks as good as skinnies (to paraphrase Kate), and when fashion declared they were no longer top of the pops they felt as though they were losing a best friend.

Model Gigi Hadid steps out in a pair of dark blue slim fit jeans in New York 

Kate Moss's daughter Lila takes a page out of her mother's book as she wears slim fit black jeans to an event in New York 

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen matches her light blue skinny jeans with a white tank top 

You may remember the recent backlash when the women of Middle England rejected the news that their floral fashion frocks were past their sell-by date and should be taken at once to the charity shop.

Well, the skinny jeans woman's relationship with her stretchy denim saviour is similar, but it goes way deeper and its been simmering ever since boyfriend jeans kicked off the looser denim mood.

Nothing in recent fashion history has divided women quite like the skinnies vs wide-leg jeans debate.

On the one hand you have the wider-leg fans who believe skinnies had got boring and that a looser fit is more flattering, especially if you're not in your prime and you no longer want to wear anything cling-on tight.

Wide-leg jeans rely on narrowish hips, but skinny jeans really only suit the straight-up-and-down, long-legged models and actresses who are getting back into them now. Don't make us wear something that's tight over our knees and the inches above our knees. Don't make our legs look like sausages when they could look like graceful flutes. That's the baggies' argument.

Then you have the committed skinnies wearers who loved, loved the comfort and practicality of stretch-fit denim. Who wants the hassle of flares dragging on a wet pavement, anyway?

A-lister Reece Witherspoon pairs her jeans with leopard-print heels 

Sarah Jessica Parker wears washed blue skinny jeans in New York last June 

The Princess of Wales tends to stick to skinnies because that's still the go-to favourite of a lot of women, whatever their interest in fashion

And if we're being brutally honest, who doesn't look bigger in big trousers? You have to be tall to wear wider or you look square. You have to wear a heel or you look dumpy. And what are you meant to wear on top, because if you think I'm tucking my top in, you've got another thing coming! This is roughly what skinny fans are thinking.

To put it another way, most middle-aged women probably like their legs more than they like the rest of their body, and the minute they put their legs away under fashionable, swaggery, A-line denim, they feel inches wider all over.

Skinny jeans sit under anything, from a longline jacket or a thigh-length blouse to a hip-grazing sweater or simple T-shirt, whereas wider trouser cuts look best with tucked in or waisted or slimline tops. 

If you're a twenty-something, you're wearing them with a cropped top and a strip of ripped abdominal muscles on show, to emphasise your tiny torso and waist above your voluminous bottom half.

That's the skinny wearers' argument: loose may look like it will be easier to wear and more flattering, but isn't really.

The fact is there is still a huge and loyal skinnies fanbase, many of whom have just never bothered to make the switch to baggies, and they are by no means all mums with tums — I give you skinny jean queen the Princess of Wales.

Kate is a very good example of what you might call skinny picking. She wears wide-leg trouser suits, the odd pair of bootcuts and tailored flares, but almost always, when she's wearing denim, and without fail when she's off-duty, she sticks with skinnies because that's still the go-to favourite of a lot of women, whatever their interest in fashion.

'Skinny jeans have remained a significant part of our business and a staple for many customers,' admits Selfridges denim buyer Grace Neal.

And, if you need any more proof that this trend is very much back at the forefront of denim sales, the style Meghan Markle favours — Le High Skinny from Frame — is currently sold out.

Our fashion favourites for new converts 

Mid-rise jodhpur, £99, hollandcooper.com

Ivy jeans, £25, marksandspencer.com

High jeans, £17.99, hm.com

Push-up jeans, £29.99, mango.com

Le High Skinny, £225 framestore.com

High-rise sculpt, £25.99, zara.com