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On a stinking dog day in Toronto last week, I found myself drawn into an unavoidable conflict: Under the fluorescent lights of a department store change room, I wrestled with a pair of skinny jeans.

"Are you having trouble getting those over your calves?" the sales girl asked.

She came back with a larger pair. They cost $250 and resembled the skins of twin adders stitched together at the top. I couldn't even get my foot in the waist. I looked at the salesgirl -- who was, of course, approximately 17 years old and shaking her money-maker in a pair of sprayed-on Diesel stovepipes -- and said, "Tell me, do you think this is just a passing trend, or is it inevitable?"

She shot me a look of pure pity. I was, undoubtedly, the zillionth non-model to ask her this question. That is to say: Do I really need to succumb to this expensive, inconvenient and, frankly, unflattering trend, or can I just keep wearing my old, comfortable, boot-cut jeans that will soon be hopelessly out of fashion but don't make my butt look like a half-melted double ice cream cone?

"It's funny," she said sweetly, "everything came in skinny this season." Which every female shopper knows is high-end salesgirl speak for, "If you're letting yourself go, the Gap is right down the street."

I gathered my wits.

"All right then," I said, "bring me the fattest skinny jeans you have."

It's not fair, but here it is: Jeans -- the ultimate basic -- are the hemline of the new millennium, shifting their shape with the era, economy and zeitgeist. (If only my bum would do the same.)

Seven years ago, I thought high-waisted jeans were flattering. I said, "That Britney Spears is a tart, and I refuse to follow in her tacky footsteps." Now, I have a closet full of jeans so low they barely cover my tailbone.

In the meantime, Britney has become a barefoot, lumpy, Federline-factory, and Sienna Miller is wearing skinny jeans. Skinny jeans with long, fitting cuffs that scrunch down over her ballerina flats just so as she trips through the streets of Notting Hill, smoking a fag, thinking, "Oh, Jude." Not that I'm going to follow the fashions of that scrawny, nanny-cuckolded minx. Except that . . . I am.

Even though I'm probably deluding myself into believing that skinny jeans don't make me look like an overripe pear, I'd rather take that chance than look like a postpartum soccer mom who hasn't been to the mall in 10 years. Apologies to Trinny and Susannah (of BBC's What Not to Wear fame), but once in a while it's better to wear something unflattering than unfashionable. I hate to say it, but if you're not wearing skinny jeans in the next six months, you are going to look like either a) you don't care or b) you don't know. Neither is good.

It may be dangerous to admit this as a style columnist, but I gave up trying to be truly original, fashion-wise, a long time ago. Like most women, I want to look as good as possible in the fashions of the day without spending much time, money or emotional energy getting there. The best I can hope for is to maintain a balance between trendy and flattering.

While this might sound like the path of least resistance, it's quite tricky. I'm constantly trying to judge the fashion tipping point, i.e. the last possible moment I can jump on a trend without looking like a complete fool.

Consequently, I miss out on many trends altogether. The whole long chunky beads thing, for instance -- I meant to get on it! I went around for a year with "Buy a string of long chunky beads" written on my to-do list. I guess I was busy because the next thing I knew it was featured as a fashion don't in the pages of InStyle.

And then there's the problem of having hyper-fashion-conscious girlfriends who are so ahead of the curve they're lapping you. By the time I've discovered something I can commit to, most of my style-hound girlfriends have already discarded it. My friend Liz, for instance, recently informed me that skinny jeans were "completely over" -- along with dark-stained wood floors, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, buffalo mozzarella and the colour black. Which led me to wonder, what exactly is in? Swedish pine, Australian shiraz, cheddar and fuchsia? God help us.

I try to remind myself that 90 per cent of the world couldn't give a toss about any of this. When I told the women in my gym class I was trying to decide whether to buy a pair of skinny jeans, they looked at me like I was nuts.

"But you look great," one of them protested. Turns out she thought I was buying undersized jeans as a motivation to lose weight, like they used to tell you to do in the eighties.

In the end, I finally found a pair of skinny jeans that didn't totally suck. Supertight in dark denim, they cut off the circulation to my feet, but my bum could do worse.

So if anyone catches Sienna in high-waisted sailor cuts, tell her she owes me $300.

lmclaren@globeandmail.com