elastane

The material is a 220gsm nylon based lycra with 18% elastane.

Yes you need elastane to make skinny pants that perfectly form to your legs, but they won't last.

E: not just elastane but performance fabrics from athleisure in general, good moisture/odour/temperature control, easy to maintain etc.

They usually use cotton in the vertical direction of the weave or knit, and then elastane in the horizontal.

Current denim fabrics typically contain some 5% elastane, which gives a bit of strechiness, but doesn't last that long.

In fact, the omnipresence of elastane in pants has been a big QoL downgrade for me.

Most modern jeans include a percentage of elastane (lycra), which makes them both more comfortable and more susceptible to wear damage.

One of my biggest everyday QoL upgrade is men's casual pants finally getting elastane.

Nearly all of the clothes you can buy contain a decent amount of plastic (elastane, polyester etc are just nice names for plastic).

If the jeans have elastane (which most tight cuts have), it should help.

The (somewhat) new stretch denim (with 1-3% elastane) makes for amazingly comfortable jeans.

Stretchy just feels weird to me and no way could I wear something that's got that much polyester and elastane.

I fabric “normal” jeans without elastane or polyester are pretty easy to find if you pay attention, they have to say their material on the tag.

Lycra/spandex/elastane had been incorporated in jeans in the 60s (I checked the Sear's catalogue to verify material composition when I was researching this), but the jean silhouette of the pants they sold were closer to what we'd call a "slim fit" today.

(side note; I also noticed that nearly all Jeans these days contain “elastane” which is basically plastic, which probably contributes to the degradation - Elastane didn’t exist for jeans in 2005, they were mostly still 100% cotton until the legging jeans fad and then it started making its way into normal jeans).

Elastane lets you get away with a fit that's really too tight.