Kendall Jenner Pairs the Optical Illusion Skirt-Pant Trend With a Rich-Girl "Amazon" Clutch

"More than meets the eye" is Kendall Jenner and stylist Dani Michelle's unspoken styling motto. The model might be loyal to a black, gray, and white palette sourced almost exclusively at The Row, but her outfits have so much more to offer than a lesson in restraint.

See the deceptively simple black outfit Kendall Jenner wore to the Vogue World: Hollywood kickoff event at Los Angeles's Chateau Marmont on March 26 as proof. Posing with close pal Hailey Bieber, Jenner appeared to have layered a black bateau neck top over wide leg trousers. Easy, elegant, impossible to overthink. But zoom in, and a clever skirt-pant trend comes into focus. She actually test-drove a hybrid garment that fuses a skirt and coordinating trousers into a single, pre-styled piece.

Two-for-one bottoms weren't the only subtle bait-and-switch in Jenner's monochromatic look. At her side, the FWRD creative director carried a boxy leather clutch by The Row. Designers Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen christened it "The Amazon," but it's nothing like a bag listed at the Everything Store. The iPhone-sized style retails for a cool $2,690.

Kendall Jenner usually stays true to a single-pleat, wide-leg trouser or a straight-leg jean. On a trip to Paris last week, she was inseparable from her belted trench coat and Khaite denim. But if a hybrid bottom was going to convince her to branch out, the skirt-pant trend was the piece for the job.

Designers as aesthetically different as Courrèges, Sandy Liang, Loewe, and Alaïa have pre-layered midi skirts over matching trousers in recent collections. Those brands might have taken inspiration from Copenhagen Fashion Week, where local legends like Ganni and Baum und Pferdgarten—alongside organic Scandi street style—have always favored doubling up on lower layers.

Wherever Jenner picked up her secretly layered pants and whichever references were on her mood board, she saw her chance to subvert expectations of the classic black pant. Anyone can get the same wink-and-nudge styling hack with the pre-layered skirts and pants ahead.

Shop Kendall Jenner's Layered Pant Trend