an affair with flare...

I love skinny jeans. I could write a sonnet about how much I love them. I would use iambic pentameter and everything. I've been in a long-term, committed relationship with them for some time now. Years, in fact. We look excellent together, and until quite recently I thought I may have found The One. (That would be my J Brand 12" Pencil jeans.)

I don't want to leave skinny jeans. I don't think I'll ever be able to walk away from them for too long. However, I'm being bombarded by temptation from another style this season. The flare. The flare has been strutting around town - everywhere from The Sartorialist to Who What Wear Daily (and All The Pretty Birds, right) - looking chic all over the streets and the internet, and I am attracted. Repeat, very attracted.

I'm rather surprised that I'm considering cheating on my skinnies with a flare. They're so not my type! I experimented with them in high school, and briefly with a pair of trouser-cut jeans recently, but I always felt guilty and unflattered. When the skinny jean came along, it was love at first three-way mirror.

The flare is wooing me though, and wooing me hard. I'm imagining a wild, dark, rather high-waisted affair, one that cuts close to the thigh and then gets crazy wide at the toe. To complete the trist? Platform wedges and tucked-in blouses. Perhaps even a dalliance with a few belts.

Sinful? Hardly. Out of character? Absolutely. In the end, breaking away from the comfort zone and experimenting a little with fashion is what keeps things spicy.

Editors, models and the like in their flares, courtesy of WWWD

 Light & dark on Le Fashion

I definitely favor the dark look on the right, but one can't help but dig the easy ensemble with the faded bell-bottoms on the left.

 Saucy Glossie looks so phenomenal in her flared trousers here (left), and the woman on the right, shot by Mr. Newton makes a strong case for white denim. (Though I am definitely not totally sold.)

Jac and Anja Rubik work a classic, dark and sleek look for Gap.

 The Kates Holmes and Moss rocking flares in contrasting ways. 

Below, four of my favorite flared denim options. If I'm going to go through with this affair, it has to be on my terms - no funny business. Clearly, even when it comes to straying from my type, I have a type. I guess my next step is what - take an ad out in the Village Voice? 

"Leggy brunette seeks five-pocket dark denim flare for illicit springtime jaunts in NYC area."

(Citizens of Humanity flare jeans, $229, J brand, $187, Hudson Jeans flare jeans, $123,Mih jeans, $189.)