I don’t wear pants that aren’t denim, and while I’m a jeans girl, I’m like the pickiest jeans girl in the world. And I’m such a nerd for Court Denim that I feel a little creepy talking about it. In about two seconds I’m gonna blow my cover and they will know I have a huge crush on them and it’ll be all awkward next time I go in to cruise their stock pretending like it’s not a big deal.

Court Denim is a line based out of Court Shop, a perfect little boutique on Mulberry Street in Nolita that happens to be owned by two totally awesome babes. I met these two babes when I was doing my own denim hustle for Judi Rosen at her old shop just down the block and around the corner on Kenmare. I had ditched a job on the eighth floor of Barneys selling overly distressed jeans with embellished pockets to Texan tourists to work for her, aka the most legendary denim ass magician New York City has ever known. When Judi closed up shop to focus on wholesale, these two awesome babes were stoked to sell her jeans. But when Judi cancelled her wholesale shipment one season to restructure, Court was left without a denim line to carry. Out of necessity, and backed by some for-real design credentials, their beautiful baby, Court Denim was born.

The inspiration for the line was more than just two girls noticing a market gap though. Nicole Tondre, the design half of the Court duo, studied design and has a ton of freelance work for some big-name folks under her belt. With the help of an investor and a factory—and her partner, Lisa Michelle–she was able to make the leap from designing for others to starting her own line. Nicole does the bulk of the design work, but Lisa provides a stellar eye to edit the line. Both gals have spent their lives knee-deep in vintage, and that, combined with slapping other people’s denim lines on Nolita’s finest asses for years, made the leap a no-brainer.

I scored an invite from Nicole and Lisa to paw at the Spring/Summer 2012 samples and to test drive some of the new fall styles on the rack at their shop. There are shorts. So many shorts. And they have so many different pocket details and variations, and jackets, and white denim and red denim and denim with sideways crosses and denim golden stars and oh so much more. 

Things I’m especially stoked on? The denim jackets (below) that are a dead ringer for the vintage children’s ones I am always finding at thrift stores, except these are human-sized, aka tit-accommodating. Equally stoked on the back pockets on the tulip shorts, the cross print denim (will definitely be purchasing), and the patriotic star-spangled shorts.

My motives for coming to Court that day were also selfish. I was on a mission for every proper dirtbag’s wardrobe staple: skinny black jeans. I painfully realized mine were too tight for everyday living a few days prior to the preview. After a summer of cutoffs and bare legs I pulled on my go-to black jeans and hopped on my bike to ride to work. About two blocks in I realized that my jeans were so tight I was unable to lift my leg high enough to effectively pedal and spent the rest of the ride audibly whimpering with pain and shame. Maybe my ass got fat in the winter, but I decided to blame the denim for being too tight and too stiff.

Thankfully the Fall 2011 collection, which just hit the racks, had a wide variety of slim black denim. My prayers were answered in the fitting room: the jeans were classic, basic, and they fit like a dream. There were no crazy buttons, no wild embellishments, no muffin-top, no superfluous distressing, just plain and black and tight. I completed all my checks and saw no camel toe or gapping in the waistband; plus, my ass looked amazing, and the weight was heavy enough to keep everything in its proper place, yet stretchy enough to execute my rather lame attempt at a high kick while wearing them. The price? $110. SOLD.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you all about how high-waist and mid-rise jeans are the bee’s knees, because frankly, if you don’t know that by now you can take your thong-bearing four-inch rise and head for the hills. What I am going to tell you is that high-waist jeans with flattering back pockets in a variety of fabric weights, colors, and leg openings for $135 or less is pretty much droptoyourkneesandthankthelord revelation-worthy. And they even make a mannequin’s skinny plastic ass look juicy.

Speaking of leg-openings, I kinda freaked when I saw their bells. Against all my heel-avoidant slim and simple denim tendencies I was drawn to them. Nicole noted that they had worked on the cut very carefully to make sure they kicked out from the leg at just the right spot below the knee. I tried on a pair. Lisa told me my ass looked amazing, which is kinda her job but I believed her completely. I felt like the ultimate and eternal dirtbag lady style icon Jennifer Herrema in them. SOLD.