New trend of men wearing women's jeans

Jeans labels are reporting a spike in denim sales, as boys are buying female styles of tight-fitting, stove-pipe jeans.

"We're finding lots of blokes buying and wearing our skinny, stove-pipe style as they've found it hard to find jeans that tight and that comfy on the men's racks," says Sarah-Jane Clarke, of leading Australian denim label, sass & bide. "The blokes tend to be super skinny guys who like the comfort factor, probably because there is extra Lycra used in female styles.

"Most of our male customers end up wearing our larger female sizes" And Ms Clarke says their new higher-waisted style is being snapped up by blokes, too.

"They're buying them oversized and wearing them quite low," she adds. The fad isn't just an underground move by gay boys and fashion victims.

The mega Diesel brand has been quick to capitalize on the boys-wearing-girls market. "We had lots of guys buying our girls' skinny jeans that head office in Italy decided to design a skinny leg pair for boys," says Diesel's retail chief, Amanda Clune.

"All our super-skinny jeans have some stretch in them and that's what the male market is wanting. "Our feedback was so strong our Italian design team designed a style called Thanaz, a skinny leg jean just for the male market."

Kieren Bird, of Cult, said his Bondi Junction store had sold at least 20 pairs of women's jeans to men in the past week. "If you think back to the '70s, the lead singer of every band had their jeans painted on, and we've revolved back to that."

But this skinny jean trend hasn't just popped out of nowhere, with lots of old rockers pouring on tight jeans well before today's femme-inspired fashion incarnation.

It started in the '50s with stove-pipe pants, when The Beatles, Buddy Holly and Australian legend Johnny O'Keefe strutted the stage in their ground-breaking slim-line look - albeit topped off with finely tailored jackets, skinny ties and neat haircuts.