Skinny jeans were both the talk and look of the town last year.

They arrived nationwide in stores and magazines, posters and runways, latching themselves to the legs of trendsetters, hipsters and fashion junkies. From the Red Carpet in Los Angeles to New York’s Upper East Side, skinny jeans ruled the wardrobes.

But they didn’t appear in every closet. According to Cynthia Istook, an associate professor of textile and apparel technology and management, skinny jeans fit only one stratum of the population.

“Fashion sometimes doesn’t think about the shapes of the people who need to wear it,” she said. “What’s in fashion is sometimes not an enhancement to how people look — it only enhances certain people.”

And this fashion trend, she said, doesn’t allow for imperfections.

“When you look at how your body looks in clothing it’s not just whether you can get [pants] on or not,” she said, “it’s whether you can cover up something about your shape that isn’t perfect.”

The unflattering silhouette skinny jeans gave some was one reason skinny jeans weren’t folded and stuffed into every shopper’s bag, she said.

“They didn’t make skinny jeans that would fit a lot of people out there,” Istook said. “I don’t think they sold as well because there were so few people who could really wear them… Wide leg trousers can fit wide range of people.”

Not only do wide-leg pants provide a more inclusive fit, Istook said they also cover and flatter parts of the body that skinny jeans certainly don’t enhance.

“A lot of us don’t have really twiggy legs,” Istook said. “Wide-leg trousers serve that purpose — they hide our flaws.”

Lauren Ramsey, a sophomore in art and design, said that because her legs aren’t fit for skinny jeans, she prefers to buy “traditional bootleg jeans” as a compromise between skinny and wide pants.

Her style, she said, is composed of what fits best, is cheapest and most flattering. Though she said she hasn’t yet bought any wide-leg trousers, she’s not opposed to the idea.

“If [wide leg pants] are what they’re selling, I’ll try them on,” she said.

Alysondria Campos, a sophomore in civil engineering, said she sticks with wide-leg trousers, in part, because of their versatility.

“More people can wear them and look good in them,” she said. “When I see girls who can’t [pull off skinny jeans] wear them, it looks horrid.”

Whereas skinny jeans also don’t fit the dress code in many professional settings, Istook said wide leg trousers are widely accepted in the workplace.

“You can get away with wearing some jeans in some areas in some professions — mainly premium, high-end jeans,” she said. “Skinny jeans were probably never acceptable in a broad way.”

But Istook warns not to get too attached to any one trend — unless it’s a string of pearls or the generation-enduring jean jacket — for too long. Fashion’s very definition provides for constant, sometimes cyclical, change.

“Wide-leg trousers are working now partly because they’re a completely different fashion trend,” she said. “One way to keep fashion trends going is to keep [trends] moving from one direction to the other. Next year they might have a completely new version of skinny jeans.”