Counterintuitive

So. How do you respond to the following?

Tomato-red pinwale corduroy jeans.

Yeah, I know. It sounds crazy. And yet, somehow, they're kinda perfect.

J. Crew Favorite Fit Bootcut cords

I found these at J. Crew this afternoon. I am feeling a bit kismet-y about them, because just today I was looking in my closet and thinking, "Man. My pants are boring." 'Cause they are. I have some amazing skirts, but the most adventurous pants I had were wide-legged cropped khakis. Ooh, wild thing. So when I wandered into J. Crew and saw that there were a couple of racks of brightly-colored corduroys on tremendous sale (Seriously -- they set me back 20 bucks, because they were having additional 50% off sale prices.), it kinda felt like these pants and I were meant for each other.

So whaddya wear with tomato-red cords? Well, I went with this:

(It would be perfect outfit for a French gal, if everything were black. I'd need a scarf, of course.)

Vanilla cashmere v-neck, black felt hat (cleverly solving the Bad Hair Day issue) and my black Weitzman Goliaths:

(Bad Girl Boots)

These boots won't be my first choice for these pants, but they still need to be hemmed and so demanded a very high heel. Very, very high. (And these are a regular-length size of these jeans! How tall do you have to be to need the Talls?)

These pants are fantastic. The cut is narrow without being skin-tight, and the rise is perfect. As I've mentioned before, I have a long torso, and the rise on these is low enough to be hip, but not so low I have to keep hoiking them up. (Hate the hoikage.) They come to just above my hipbones, which makes them more comfortable and less likely to head south with a good tug. (No, to answer your smarty-pants question, people are not in the habit of running up to me and yanking down my pants; but I just feel better knowing that if the circus came to town and Wacko the Clown mistook me for someone else in his act, my pants would stay up. We all have our things, okay?) At the store in Barton Creek Mall, where I was today, they had several really great, saturated colors, including a kelly green, mustard-y yellow, and coral pink, as well as lots of the red. Be aware, they run a bit big -- I had to go down a size from my usual.

Now. If you click the photo above, it will take you to the J. Crew site where you can buy these pants, in several colors other than this bright red if you're less... um, adventurous than yours truly. (Including an aubergine than I'm going to be dreaming of.) However, they're not on sale on the website, for some reason. So here's my advice to you: go here to locate a real live J. Crew store, call the store, and talk to a human being to find out if they have them in your size, then buy them over the phone and ask them to ship 'em to you. That is how you make the retail work for you, my friends. Most places will happily drop something in the mail (or the FedEx, or the UPS) for you if you ask them. Shipping charges are not typically more than they'd be online, in-store sales tend to be more frequent and deeper than online ones, and the return policy is usually going to be the same. Ask to be put on the mailing list, and that way even if you're not near an actual store, you'll get notices about sales and specials. Just be thoughtful about when you call to order over the phone -- don't call on a Saturday afternoon or in the evening or some other retail crunch time when the SAs are probably up to their eyeballs in customers, many of whom are accompanied by ear-splitting, tantruming children they cannot be bothered to discipline. (Ooh, someone had a bad retail experience...) Try mid-morning on a Monday, when they're all standing around bored out of their skulls and would like nothing more than to make a sale, even if it's over the phone.

So sayeth the Bargainista. (If you don't mind advice from a woman in bright red pants.)

An addendum, to address a reader's comment:

Deja Pseu asks,"Question for you, for we gals who are a bit "curvy" on the bottom (well, "curvy" all around actually) should we stay away from bright colors on the bottom? Or is it just light colors to be avoided?"

Deja -- I did see a couple of pairs of pants labeled "S" while I was in the store, so perhaps those don't count as petites. As far as bright colors on the bottom... well, obviously, if you wear a bright color it's going to draw the eye. This means it's extra-important that the fit be right. A bright color can still be a darker color, e.g. kelly green pants and a white blouse. Also, the "darker colors on the bottom" rule can be bent and even broken, depending on how you dress the top. Remember, it's about creating proportion. So if you're wearing something that makes your shoulders look wider than your hips (a wonderfully fitted jacket, for example), the color of your pants is less of an issue.


Photos: JCrew.com, Style Spy