On Thursday, a pair of jeans was thrown on my desk like a floppy fish at a sushi market.
“Try them out,” instructed my boss. “See what they can do.”
The pants were a recreation of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic denim from the 1961 movie “The Misfits,” rebuilt by designer Vivian Rivetti for Lee. The capsule collection also features the iconic Lee Storm Rider Jacket and the easy white button-down shirt she was famously wearing on-set.
But the big draw was the jeans, so famous from the movie, and remade with a tiny bit more stretch but the same 65-year-old shape… which meant a high waist that looked like it could choke out my intestines, and the type of “where’s the flood?” ankle cuff that got me bullied in middle school.
Lying limp on my desk, these $109 Marilyn jeans looked, to quote my adolescent tormenters, “super f—ing sad” — which meant I wasn’t too psyched when I was asked, along with some hesitant colleagues, to wear them around the office.
Would we feel the ultimate American icon, Norma Jean?
My first thought was “no.”
Actually, my first thought — once these things were zipped and buttoned — was “ow.”
Like all post-pandemic millennials, I am used to the kind of boyish, baggy jeans last seen on the wastoid skaters in Clueless, the looser and softer the better.
These Marilyn jeans hit super high on me — like, past my belly button — and squeezed my waist with the clingy force of a toddler who doesn’t want to leave the playground
Tightest at the butt and ankles, these pants had almost no stretch and, like the most boring guy you’ve ever bedded, they really only bend one way.
Sitting at my desk in them, I notice the dreaded “red line” forming where the zipper and top button hit my body, leaving an irritated rim of hot pink skin along the sides.
It got worse when I ate my sad-desk salad at lunch, and the fiber from some green bell peppers hit my digestive tract.
I felt like a sausage. But it turned out, I kind of looked like a smokeshow.
My stomach was flatter. My butt was rounder. My cowboy boots peeked out of the cuffed bottoms like a vintage Ralph Lauren ad.
Women in the Post newsroom stopped to tell me I looked “different” with a nod of approval, as if I’d gotten a therapist and a Gwyneth-approved trainer instead of a cotton-poly blend pair of pants.
This was actually a pretty good deal for $109.
Marilyn Monroe fashion collector and historian Scott Fortner had a theory about why.
He told The Post that costume designers loved putting Marilyn Monroe in jeans because it conveyed a “glamorous but easy, all-American look.”
He noted that the fit of these jeans “would feel a little different” on a modern body because Marilyn’s silhouettes were famously tailored to exaggerate her hourglass figure, even if it meant feeling yanked.
“In her personal life, she actually didn’t wear jeans very much!” said Fortner. “She wore things that were more comfortable for her — capris and cotton pants and silk Pucci pants.”
These “Misfit” jeans, Fortner explained, “are what people thought Marilyn wore, when they tried to copy her… It’s why you saw women wearing jeans in the 1950s and 1960s. She helped make it glamorous.”
Fortner suspects the Marilyn x Lee jeans “will be a hit” — but my Post colleagues were a mixed bag on whether they were worth “the bombshell tax” of feeling squished and cinched.
Gen Z lifestyle reporter Allison Lax said she liked the vibe — “they gave me a classic look without feeling glaringly retro” — but hit her limit after about two hours of sitting in the pants at her desk.
“Moving around in them was great. Sitting in them during work? Not great.” Still, Lax admitted she “loved” the way she looked in them. “I’m wearing them on a first date tonight,” she said, which feels like the ultimate endorsement.
Millennial photo editor Jesaca Lin was more excited about the Lee white button-up shirt she got to throw on for the shoot, saying it was “cool and easy to wear” without looking too casual.
“The jeans look amazing but I’m not totally in love,” she admitted. “I feel like they might be a little too old-school.”
But for Gen X reporter Isabel Vincent, the jeans represented the perfect blend of vintage movie star and modern vixen. “Love them. Love,” she said. “I want to wear them everywhere. They’re easy but not sloppy. They look great. I’m sold.”
But were they able to bring a little bit of Monroe’s bombshell power to the office?
“Nobody will be Marilyn Monroe,” Vincent said. But if channeling her man-eating star power can wean us off our dependence on pajama pant officewear, I mean… let’s give it a try.