Skinny jeans are the backbone of my wardrobe. I wear some variation on that theme pretty much every day – and yes, I realise that probably makes me quite boring.

So I’m alarmed to hear critics suggesting that the ‘Mum Jean’ could be a pretender to my favourite style’s denim crown. Alarmed, and in the same breath totally unconvinced that this will ever happen. Because I've heard this said of kick-flares and boyfriend jeans in the past, and it never comes to pass. Because skinny jeans are the best thing to have happened to womenswear in the past decade, and here’s why.

Skinny jeans arrived on my fashion radar while I was at university, and I remember the sensation they caused. My roommate and I were the first to wear them in college, two would-be Kate Mosses in grey Topshop Baxters. People called us Bon Jovi; they said it’d never catch on. I find it highly unlikely that those people are still wearing their bootcuts right now. They’re more likely to be one of more than three million people who’ve bought Baxters since 2005.

The enduring power of the skinny jean, which remains top denim dog ten years after they first (re)appeared in the shops, is that, while daringly clingy in its first incarnation and nigh-on directional against a then-backdrop of cargo pants and hipsters (when that word referred to trousers rather than people), the style has become an everyday no-brainer for busy women, whether they’re going into work that day, to the shops, or to the pub.

Skinny jeans transcend the usual denim boundaries because they don’t feel or look like a pair of traditionally slouchy jeans. Baggier denim styles, a boyfriend cut or even (whisper it) a bootcut, may well be comfortable for kicking around in at the weekend, but they’d never past muster at work – those frayed hems are pet hate of mine, for starters, and the fit is just too relaxed to feel smart.

But a black pair of skinny jeans in a mid-rise, weighty denim (ie. one that isn’t inclined to go south or see-through at the back when you bend) becomes an easier alternative to a formal trouser, worn with a decent jumper as workwear or with what people back home call a ‘going out top’ for whatever you’re doing in the evening.

Add to that the fact you can then wear these astonishingly useful trousers with trainers and a T-shirt at the weekend and you’ll come to the same conclusion that I have: that skinny jeans are your fashion friend in an ever-changing, hostile world.

I don’t know what people wore before them. Whatever it was, I could never be bothered with it. Pre-skinnies, I rarely wore trousers, because I couldn’t find any that fitted properly – the right waist size was far too short on me, and everything seemed to have in-built hips that didn’t match my own.

In the decade since those first generation Baxters, the skinny jean has been refined through cut, length and fabrication into the sort of wardrobe piece that sticks around pretty much forever.

There have been good times and bad times, of course, good judgement and bad (skinny jeggings and combats live in this category). Skinnies brought with them a lifestyle shift; they birthed the 'muffin-top' and a belt loops dance (whereby you pull up and shimmy down) that has its own Facebook group, but they've come a long way since then.

In the early days, many versions were little more than cotton leggings – or as I like to call them ‘cellulite filters’. Then there was a brief window in which skinny jeans had a bosom-high waistband built onto them, which looked very odd. And then people starting doing them in jazzy colours too, which erodes the credibility of any item of clothing.

For me, skinny jeans are very simple. A sturdy denim that can cope with whatever junk you’re manoeuvering into them; a grown-up waistband (one that sits just above your hipbone) and worn a top that reaches your bum.

The rule that you have to be skinny yourself to wear them is a fallacy. In fact, boyfriend and flared versions are far less forgiving, in that they look like what they are: tarpaulin for legs. In skinnies, every woman has a cracking set of pins. What are you waiting for?