Women's Jeggings (Jeans)

What looks like denim here is usually a knit. A jegging is built like a legging, from stretch fabric with an elastic or covered waistband, then finished with the surface details of a jean: an indigo face, a fake fly, contrast stitching and pockets that are often printed on or sewn shut. Woven denim is either absent or present only as a thin face over a knit back.

That swap explains everything the garment does well and badly. Stretch of 20 percent or more means it pulls on with no zip and never restricts a bend. An elastic waist means nothing presses into your stomach on a long flight. It also means no woven structure holds the shape, so the fabric thins at the inner thigh and seat, bags at the knee, and goes translucent under stretch long before a woven jean would show wear. Expect a shorter life than a woven pair at the same price, and buy with that in mind.

Skinny jeans reach a similar outline out of woven denim with 1 to 3 percent elastane, stiffer to put on and holding shape for years rather than months. Plain leggings drop the denim face altogether and are clearly made as knitwear. Straight and wide cuts do not compete at all, since those depend on cloth with body. What a jegging really replaces is a legging you would rather not wear to a casual workplace.

Long flights, long drives and desk days are where they earn their place. A body changing size gets months more wear from them than a woven pair would allow. Boots go on over them with no bulk. Any setting that would notice an elastic waistband rules them out. Anyone hard on clothes should treat them as a season purchase rather than a staple.

Bend forward in bright light and have someone check the seat, because opacity fails at full stretch and a mirror cannot show you that angle. Feel the fabric weight in your hand, since a thicker double knit stays opaque where a thin one does not. Hunt for a gusset, the small diamond panel at the crotch, which stops four seams meeting at one point and splitting. Wash cold, skip fabric softener, whose coating kills recovery, and dry flat rather than in heat that breaks elastane.