Once upon a time, before skinnies had taken over as the favored style, everyone wore bootcut jeans. They worked with every type of shoe- boots, heels (Rabbit trail: remember when all the heels HAD to be super-pointy-toe stilettos?), flats…

Because of my reluctance to hop on the skinny jean train (hel-LO big ol’ country girl calves!), I had many pairs of bootcut jeans.

Soon, though, I realized that all that extra fabric at the bottom was really more cumbersome than stylish and I had to figure out what to do with it. I’m actually a big fan of the rockabilly look (on men and women), so I took to cuffing my jeans.

But, time moves on and styles keep changing. I do prefer showing a bit of ankle, but I’d rather wear a slimmer jean like the skinnies, or my new favorite, the boyfriend.

But I had all those bootcut jeans that I didn’t want to have to replace, so I found an alternative solution. I started out with these bootcut jeans from Maurices and using this tutorial from Maybe Matilda I bibbity-bobbity-booed my jeans into a style I liked better. This particular tutorial was very easy to understand, and with it I was able to accomplish exactly what I set out to do.

I didn’t go as skinny as the tutorial does, but since my legs are curvier, they look better an a slightly looser style. I do feel like these are more current and more flattering than what I started out with.

Here I paired my new slim boyfriend jeans with ankle booties, because I, as a dear friend recently told me, “ain’t got time for all of that up the leg stuff this year!” Amen!

Do you have outdated clothes that you’re hanging on to? What would you do to make them wearable again?

jeans: Maurices // tunic: similar // shrug: New York & Company (similar) // ankle boots: Qupid (similar)