Still searching for the perfect pair of jeans

It seems like I've coveted the perfect pair of jeans my entire life.

In 6th grade, I was in absolute ecstasy over Jordache jeans, which everyone had except me, so I begged my mother for a pair. One day, she said she'd bought me some Jordache and then handed me socks with that iconic horse profile stitched into the thick cotton.

I remember thinking it had to be a joke and actually searching around for a shopping bag with the jeans inside. Tragically, it was just the socks, which, as a form of protest, I never ever wore.

In high school, it was all about Guess jeans. Somehow I thought if I could actually score a pair, I'd be transformed into Claudia Schiffer in a lacy, white bustier looking coyly into the camera or Anna Nicole Smith channeling Marilyn Monroe with her platinum blond hair and voluptuous curves.

I actually got the jeans for Christmas one year, and I loved them. Until an unfortunate bleach accident that I still can't talk about.

When I went off to college, one of my roommates was a girl named Terri, who had a closet full of men's vintage Levi's. She showed me how to take the extra material at the bottom and fold it over, then roll up the pant leg to the ankle. We'd wear them low on the hips with a studded leather belt and pair them with scuffed Bass bucs.

I finally snagged my own that August when a summer boyfriend gave me an old pair of his 501s. To this day, I don't think there's anything more comfortable than some worn men's Levi's.

For a couple of years, I hoarded a collection of petite jeans from Banana Republic mostly, I think, because I was in a total state of shock that petite jeans even existed.

And then one day I saw a picture of some celebrity like Cameron Diaz in US Weekly wearing the coolest pair of jeans I'd ever seen, and I had to have them. So I went to Neiman Marcus and tried on several pairs of Citizens of Humanity, eventually buying the Kelly Stretch 001, even though it seemed like there was enough extra material at the bottom to stitch into a second pair of jeans.

For me, the final frontier for jeans was the introduction of petite designer denim like the Provocateur range by Joe's Jeans, which has a shorter inseam and a higher knee break. When I finally caved in and bought some skinny jeans a few years ago, it was a pair of petite Paige Premium.

Supposedly the average woman has eight pairs of jeans in her closet, but I don't think we ever stop searching for the perfect pair.

My latest obsession? Some white jeans for summer. And I won't be satisfied until I find the exact right pair.