The Manifold Ways to Wear White Jeans

It is a universal truth worth reiterating that the best thing about jeans is that no one can ruin them for you. Unlike an easily identifiable dress, or skirt, or pair of shorts, which can serve as the controversial condiment you place over, say, a slice of bread, jeans are that slice of bread. Everyone likes bread. Everyone eats bread. It comes ripe with opportunity to manipulate, garnish, or simply consume as-is. If you don't like how someone else eats their bread, that means absolutely nothing about the way you eat your bread. And the same can be said for jeans; they're the Switzerland of clothing in that they are so damn neutral, sometimes you forget they're even there. Which, surprisingly, in no way detracts from their untrammeled ability to speak to a woman's sense of personal style, and man do they make getting dressed easy. So, while we continue to perform our respective sun dances in anticipation of warmer days smacking us where the sun don't shine, let's play the 1 piece, 5 ways game and festoon what are inarguably the world's best pair of jeans: Madewell's Boyjean in white clover. First up: there's the purgatory look, which finds you clothed when it is neither winter nor spring. Try a white blouse with neckerchief (Madewell shown), because we're nothing if not a legion of banditos, and white sneakers -- red and blue stripes not obligatory at all, though they do make a red lip feel more tied together and oh wow, I'm doing that thing where I look like America even though it's not the Fourth of July, huh?

Looks two and three are supposed to function as a physical manifestation of summer. First in the form of a casual evening appropriate outfit, replete with a corporate blue bralette layered over a white t-shirt and shoes that boast not one but two layers of non-Western fringe, topped with a see-through clutch, which incidentally arrived with a tampon inside of it.

The second summer look is also casual but decidedly day time (work?) appropriate, what with its classic sunglasses, white patent leather Birkenstocks and arm-tillery of bangles. The peplum blouse, sleeveless and v-neck, evokes summer with its insouciant perforations, while the trench coat can't stop humming

Lovefool with a deserved touch of pomp. Normsnore? I think not.

The final two looks hearken back to a harsh reality: that it is still cold outside. In the casual day look, I wear the white jeans with a cable-knit ivory sweater, an ankle length blazer/jacket, black socks, and Madewell lace-up Oxfords. The sunglasses are Karen Walker and make me feel crazy.

Finally, we've got a black leather denim-style jacket, worn over a sheer dress, worn over white jeans, worn over white patent leather pumps. Meanwhile, I continue to sound like a broken record player, singing, come on, spring. Show. Yo. Self.

It's a damn good thing bread is not seasonal. Part 1 of 1 in collaboration with Madewell, outfit credits (sorry, cRediTz) in slideshow.

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