Sarah Jessica Parker on Why She Didn’t Wear Jeans for Over a Decade

Sarah Jessica Parker has spent almost 20 years sharing her love of clothing with legions of women across the world. It makes perfect sense, then, that when Jordache wanted to reinvent their image, they tapped the style aficionado to help them. Earlier this week, we chatted with Parker, current star of the Jordache Look ad campaign, about her relationship with jeans, and how she went from not wearing them until her teens to having her own clothing archive.

SJP looking totally cool in jeans and a crew-neck sweatshirt this spring.

Glamour: Were there any denim outfits from the ’70s or ’80s that you’d still wear today?

Sarah Jessica Parker: I don’t think I even owned a pair of jeans until maybe 1979. My sisters and I didn’t wear jeans. My [older] sister got a pair when she was 11 or 12, and I got them as a hand-me-down. When I was 12 or 13, my mom bought me my first pair of jeans. But we didn’t wear jeans; we wore tights and dresses.

Glamour: Was it that you didn’t want to wear jeans or your mom didn’t dress you in them?

SJP: I wanted very much to wear jeans, but my mom wouldn’t let me. Even in cold Midwestern winters, we still just wore tights and snow pants. It was weird.

In the ’80s, when I was buying my own, I spent a lot of time taking them in, pegging them, and later cutting them off. I’ve done everything to a jean. I feel really comfortable messing with my jeans. I have no problem, none. I’ll make a mistake and then I’ll sew it back on. It’s crude, awful, horrible stitches.

’80s denim

Glamour: Is there a Holy Grail of jeans you’re still searching for?

SJP: I feel like I have really everything I’ve ever wanted in a jean. I feel lucky, and I keep things. I have jeans that I wore to work on Sex and the City season 2 that are still part of the rotation.

Glamour: How many pairs of jeans would you say you have?

SJP: In rotation…?

Glamour: In rotation, not in rotation.

SJP: In archive, I have no idea, but in rotation, a lot. Twenty maybe? Thirty? I have no idea.

Glamour: Do you bring things in and out of the archive?

SJP: No. Once they’re in archive, that’s it. They’re in archive.

Parker’s February denim

Glamour: When you’re denim shopping, what are you looking for? The fit, the feel…?

SJP: The fit is what I’m thinking about, but that’s a variety of things. It’s very much “the fit for what?” The fit for being able to wear long johns underneath for the winter and walk kids to school? Run to the subway or go to a meeting and be warm enough in the dead of February, the bleakest month of the year? That’s one fit. Or the jean that I want to feel like I can go out at night and it’s going to be that for me.

Glamour: Are there any strange fitting-room tests you swear by?

SJP: I just know. I’ve worn so many things, I’ve tried on so many things…I’ve spent probably thousand of hours in fittings. I can know so quickly how something’s going to feel on me, look on me. It’s a pretty fast courtship. I say yes or no pretty quickly.

Glamour: So you’re a quick shopper?

SJP: I don’t shop a lot!

Glamour: What! Do you not enjoy it?

SJP: I do, it just doesn’t ever fit in. I’d love to do it more, but I’ll do it when I don’t intend to. But if I think about, “Oh maybe tomorrow I’ll go shop,” it never happens.

SJP for Jordache

Jordache’s newly revamped women’s line launched at Walmart this week; shop ’em now!

More SJP News:

Sarah Jessica Parker Is Officially Returning to TV!

SJP on the Wedding Dress She Should Have Worn

9 Sex and the City Style Moments That Would Never Fly in Real Life

Plus, watch Parker go to the White House with Kerry Washington: