How to Make Winter’s Denim Trends Work for You
From wide-leg to barrel jeans, this season celebrates versatility and individual style.
Yves Saint-Laurent once famously noted, "I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity—all I hope for in my clothes." Denim—particularly the best jeans of winter 2025—can do it all. It's the material that can cater to most (if not all) of your wardrobing needs.
The denim trends for winter 2025 follow that ethos with many different aesthetic avenues for you to choose from. It could be the season you broaden your horizons and try a wider-legged pair of jeans. You might be pleasantly surprised with the comfort of a baggier, more breathable silhouette. Or, maybe this is when you lean into your love of 1970s fashion and invest in a groovy, high-waisted flare—like the bell-bottoms you'd find in Farrah Fawcett's style file.
Designers flexed the full breadth of denim's versatility throughout winter 2025's trends. Many creatives in charge harkened back to denim's all-American roots—like Catherine Holstein at Khaite, who included a pair of stiff straight-leg jeans in classic Levi's true blue. Others iterated with more of the moment; Gucci sent out baggy jeans embellished with ornate beaded fringe, while Versace ripped up and shredded the pockets on its pin-tuck denim trousers.
Keep scrolling to explore a high-to-low edit of the top denim trends worth trying on for the season, with style inspiration from the Resort 2025 runways.
Pocket Play
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It would be difficult to ignore fashion's full embrace of utility lately—namely, the proliferation of pockets across categories, from handbags with lots of extra storage and cargo pants to carpenter jeans and barn jackets. The latter styles take center stage for winter, as seen with Chanel's quadruple pocket vest and Versace's front-patched baggy jeans.
Flare Up
You don't have to go full-on '70s groove with winter's flare jeans trend. A trendy leather bomber jacket or sharp black blazer will add a toughened edge to counterbalance the retro feel. However, a throwback look can be quite compelling—just look at Chloé's lovely bohemian combination of deep blue bell-bottoms with gold chains and oversized sunnies.
Wide Strides
Supersized, Palazzo-style wide-leg jeans are perhaps the most prominent denim trend for winter—both in terms of how often the silhouette appeared on the runways and the look itself. For how to style baggy jeans, take a cue from Nili Lotan and Rag & Bone and wear a denim-on-denim outfit in coordinating washes. Alternatively, a crisp white button-down shirt like Gucci's is a less controversial pairing.
True Blue
Denim was perhaps the only category immune to the influence of winter 2025's color trends. Instead, Helmut Lang, Khaite, and Coach designers kept it simple with true blue and not-too-cool nor too-warm washes. Denim purists who wax poetic about the integrity and iconic nature of Levi's original 501s will be particularly pleased.
Dance-Floor Denim
You'll always see some sparkle and glitz trend during the holiday season, and winter's denim is no exception. From Alexander McQueen's crystals and Gucci's high-shine fringe to Christion Dior's silver studs and Stella McCartney's cutout hardware—any semblance of shimmer and shine will work for this trend.
Beat Up and Broken In
You'll probably either love or loathe this polarizing style, but a pre-worn look gained momentum this season. An option like Ganni's vintage-looking jacket or Jennifer Lopez's dirty jeans from Acne Studios are both solid places to start with the grimy-on-purpose look—mimicking a pair of jeans that have been rolled around in some dirt.
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Emma is the fashion features editor at Marie Claire, where she explores the intersection of style and human interest storytelling. She covers viral styling tips—like TikTok's "Olsen Tuck" and Substack's "Shirt Sandwiches"—and has written dozens of runway-researched trend reports about the ready-to-wear silhouettes, shoes, bags, and colors to shop for each season. Above all, Emma enjoys connecting with real people to discuss all facets of fashion, from picking a designer's brain to speaking with stylists, entertainers, artists, and C-suite executives about how to find a personal style as you age and reconnect with your clothes postpartum.
Emma also wrote for The Zoe Report, Editorialist, Elite Daily, Bustle, and Mission Magazine. She studied Fashion Studies and New Media at Fordham University Lincoln Center and launched her own magazine, Childs Play Magazine, in 2015 as a creative pastime. When Emma isn't waxing poetic about niche fashion discourse on the internet, you'll find her stalking eBay for designer vintage, reading literary fiction on her Kindle, doing hot yoga, and "psspsspssp-ing" at bodega cats.
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