In a decade of being a denim enthusiast, one of the most pronounced changes I’ve seen in the style is hem length.

When I got into it, one style was particularly venerated: wearing your jeans uncuffed with a very long inseam, to get “stacks” around the hem, which would lead to contrast fading similar to the knees and lap. Like everyone else, I was just as enamored with this look, which seems to have come out of mid-2000s streetwear, particularly from sneaker forums, which was then distilled into the denim community on Superfuture and some other sites like MyNudies.

However, this aesthetic created a problem for me: I’m extremely tall, at 6’3”/191cm, so I’d need jeans with an inseam of 38” or longer for similar stacking. My belief that I needed tremendously long jeans turned out to be a major obstacle, and limited my options since it prevented me from enjoying many of the Japanese brands that were only around 34” at longest.

Today, things are quite different. Stacks are no longer en vogue, and in fact are rarely seen on denim enthusiasts today (with the exception of some parts of Asia, like Indonesia and Thailand, where this style remains relatively popular.) What happened?

Well, it’s probably all Tom Ford’s fault. Shorter hem lengths have been popular for at least the past seven years, and while this is sometimes carried to the extreme, it brought about some much-needed correction. I’m not especially susceptible to fashion trends, but my thoughts on stacking and hem length certainly evolved, though it didn’t happen overnight.

The problem with stacking is that it creates a very messy look. Skinny jeans with some stacking are still common in certain streetwear styles and the “SLP” look, but are pretty inflexible for casual outfits beyond that, and at least to my eye, look costume-like. A more objective problem concerns proportions – having a big pile of stacks makes you look short, which generally isn’t what we want from our jeans. And if you’re tall like me and somehow manage to get some jeans long enough to stack, it just makes you look even weirder and disproportionate, like you’re the unfortunate byproduct of a bored kid trying messing around with a video game’s character builder.

The stacking look only really works under particular conditions – if you’re a medium height, medium build, and your jeans are very slim at the hem. Looser-fitting jeans look even worse stacked, and in fact without a pretty narrow hem, even a lot of extra length will not stack much. Further, unless if you commit to rarely or never washing your jeans, you probably won’t get the desired fading around the stacks anyway, since after a wash the stacks rarely settle how they were before.

So, now that we’ve established stacking is probably not the way to go, how long should the hem be, anyway?

At this point in my denim odyssey, I would say that it should be long enough to have a very slight break, or no break, and the final length will take into account whether or not you cuff your jeans, another issue you ought to consider, and one which is pretty much inseparable to determining jeans length.

There are many ways to cuff – big cuff, double cuff, triple cuff, various combinations therein. Let’s examine them.

Double Cuff

First is the double cuff. There are several reasons I’d discourage it, such as that it’s often bulky, a problem magnified with heavyweight denim. Another is that it seems to cause more damage to the denim at the points where it’s cuffed, which is multiplied compared to the single crease of cuffing once. And it has a much rougher-looking appearance, in most cases. If you only wear your jeans with moc toes and heavy flannels this isn’t so bad, but it’s not very versatile. (Unless you’re Volvo240TheBest in the above picture, who always makes it look good.)

With lighter-weight denim, a small double cuff can look good. However, this leads to the last reason I’d avoid it. If you’ve got a hem that was chainstitched with a Union Special 43200G machine, it will lead to an attractive roping fade with wear and washing. This gets hidden with a double cuff.

Big Cuff

The big cuff can be cool if you really want the greaser and rockabilly look, but otherwise I wouldn’t cuff more than about 2” or so. Remember that the bigger your cuff, the more aesthetically distracting it can be, draw attention away from your footwear. And the bigger the cuff, the more it looks like your jeans are too long by accident, rather than on purpose, which can make the wearer look shorter. But there are times where a big cuff can look good, so I wouldn’t totally dismiss it.

No Cuff

This is a good way to go if you prefer more of a preppy or business casual look where you pair your jeans with oxfords, wingtips, or boat shoes – all of which go better with the more refined look of no cuff. If you wear sport coats or cardigans over an Oxford-style shirt, those are indicators that you may want to go the no cuff route.

Getting the length right is essential, and you shouldn’t have more than a slight break when worn uncuffed. You’ll also want to keep in mind the width of your hem – no cuff usually looks better with a smaller hem, especially if you want a little bit of break. This will help you avoid a fit where your jeans sloppily collapse inward on themselves around the hem. If you want to go no cuff with a looser leg fit, go with a boot like engineer boots or cowboy boots, which have a wider shaft to fill out the shape of the jean leg.

Single Cuff

This brings me to my favorite look. I wear a single cuff, about 1.5” from the crease to the end of the hem. This doesn’t look clunky, but has the beneficial effect of rounding out the hem and creating a cleaner silhouette, which becomes important on a straight fit that doesn’t hug your calf. This look is versatile, works with most footwear and outfits, and is easy to keep clean. It also accentuates your jeans without being too distracting.

In my opinion, a single cuff of modest size or uncuffed and hemmed are the most flexible and attractive ways to style your jeans. You can fit in a wide variety of outfits, and your jeans won’t look sloppy – plus it will be flattering on your height, whether you’re tall or short. It’s well worth the effort to send your jeans to a hemming service with a Union Special 43200G (and 3/8” folder!) and get your jeans hemmed to the desired length.

My final piece of advice is to figure out in advance which style suits you the best, and take it into consideration when you buy your jeans, so you can get them hemmed to the right length for the style you prefer. You might be surprised just how much impact the right style of cuff can have on your overall appearance.

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