For a number of years I only wore skirts. I had mini-skirts, long skirts, all sorts of skirts. My friends would occasionally comment that they never saw me in jeans. I did genuinely enjoy wearing skirts and at the time I worked a job where dressing nicely was part of the deal. As much as I loved skirts, however, my enjoyment was not the whole reason I was wearing them.

I was wearing skirts because I couldn’t fit my booty in a pair of jeans.

At that time, I owned one pair of ill-fitting jeans I never wore and I had long before donated all my dress slacks to Goodwill.

Now, I wasn’t fat, I don’t think I was shaped any differently than a lot of women out there, and I put a fair amount of effort into finding a pair of jeans that would fit me. They just didn’t exist.

This wasn’t always how life was for me. When I was younger and not an athlete, I could buy jeans off the rack. Even then I had more leg than the average girl, but I still fell within the fashion industry’s parameters for how a woman is shaped. After I discovered martial arts and CrossFit things changed. Endless lunges, horse stance, clean and jerks, deadlifts and squats resulted in Kung Fu Quads and CrossFit Booty.

I loved it. I would way rather have a caboose than fit in size two jeans. But, I do want to have the option of wearing jeans.

This was my dilemma: If I found a pair of jeans that fit my quads and glutes, there would inevitably be inches and inches of extra fabric around the waist. If I found a pair of jeans that fit my waist…well, I could maybe pull them up past my calves and that was it.

“Who fits in these jeans?” I thought. “Whose legs are this skinny? There’s no way she can squat.”

So, rather than give up my athletics and join the world of calf-less flat-butted skinny-fat girls, I stuck with my kickboxing and CrossFit and invested in a dozen skirts.

Before long, the irony that is life struck hard. I started dating a guy who was obsessed with jeans. His closet was wall to wall denim. Brands I never heard of. Who knew what selvedge meant? Well, now I did. I learned all sorts of things only a denim geek would know.

Then one day he popped the question.

“How come you never wear jeans?”

I didn’t really have to say much. He was clearly familiar with my booty. What he said next, however, changed my world: He offered to take me to the annual clearance sale at Lisa Kline and he offered to introduce me to his denim tailor. The full brilliance of these two items was something I could not fully understand until the day came.

First up – Lisa Kline. Lisa Kline carries ridiculously expensive, absolutely beautiful clothing. Jeans that cost hundreds of dollars. Except, at the annual clearance sale these jeans are $20. And, if you’re not a skinny-fat flat-butted girl, your sizes are not sold out and are in fact the majority of what is available. Who knew my CrossFit booty would pay off in such an amazing way! Not to mention my boyfriend knew all the brands so he did all the selecting, I tried the jeans on, and we were in and out in under an hour. $800 worth of denim for under $100.

Next up – Dr. Blue Jeans. Dr. Blue Jeans is a man of magic. I went to his shop, he literally put me on a pedestal, flicked his little nub of chalk on a few places on my jeans and when I returned a week later it was like they had been made just for me. I couldn’t even figure out how he did it. They looked untouched and perfect.

And there it was — a whole new world in front of me! A world of wearing sexy designer jeans and a cool pair of heels. A world of not having to shave my legs every single day. A world where my legs were no longer at odds with the fashion industry and I could now show off the disparity in my waist and my quads, instead of being a fashion victim to it.

This was my new world indeed.