Said the comedian Noah Garfinkel, as quoted in the New York Times "Why Are Pants So Big (Again)?/And what the latest swing from skinny to wide tells us about ourselves."
There's also this quote from David Lynch: "I am searching for a good pair of pants. I never found a pair of pants that I just love. If they’re not right, which they never are, it’s a sadness."
And this, from GQ fashion editor Samuel Hine: “Pants are diabolical as design objects.... You can look at the measurements for the waist and the inseam, but that won’t tell you anything besides how they fit in two places, when there’s so many other variables — the rise, the hemline, fabric weight, drape. It’s an object that throughout history was made by tailors and craftsmen, and when it got mass-produced and casualized, what happened was they took this really intricate garment and tried to tell us, 'Everyone can wear this every day, and it’ll be easy to find a pair that makes sense for your body' — but it’s actually an enormous challenge."
I remember when it seemed as though we were going to be able to buy perfectly fitting, made-to-order pants on line. Why hasn't that happened yet? Why are we still condemned to the endless diabolical sadness that is pants?
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Pants are getting bigger because people are getting bigger (fatter). Mystery solved.
1620 Workwear Foundation pants made in America. Real pockets for real men.
I have noticed a demographic shift over the last 20 years or so. I wear 31w 30 inseam jeans (not a big guy). Seems like most items in stores with a 31 or 32 waist have a 34 inseam. 30 inseam pants have 34 or 36 waist. So short guys are fat and tall guys are skinny. Amazon helps a bit.
Forget pants what about shoes? Now usually in full sizes with no width indication. Forget the arch, heel and toes.
Fashionable menswear has looked awful for at least two decades. It's as if they're trying to save fabric (or mimic women's suits)--an inch or two too small in every dimension--so it has to be uncomfortable. The worst is when you see shirt under the coat button.
Cabelas 5" inseam cargo shorts for me. Add sweat pants in cold weather.
"I remember when it seemed as though we were going to be able to buy perfectly fitting, made-to-order pants on line. Why hasn't that happened yet? "
There's an ad on TV lately for exactly this. I think you "scan" yourself with your phone and it determines many individual measurements, then sends you perfect pants. I haven't paid much attention (I'm happy with my pants), so I'm sorry I can't provide more info. Next time I see it, I'll try and get the particulars.
Why are we still condemned to the endless diabolical sadness that is pants?
And they're required by law! It's nuts!
The pants situation is exactly why I don't like this push for electric cars. Electric vehicles just don't fit me and yet they want to force me into one.
Basically it's the same precious people who claim they don't want to see my bare ass that are now offended by my ICE pickup truck. Just leave me alone. I know what I'm doing.
Look assholes, I put on my Speedos, I'm wearing a bathrobe, admittedly filthy and I can't find the belt, but I'm technically legal. So shut the fuck up already, communist. Go get in your POS Leaf or whatever it is and just go away. Do I look like I need your advice?
32 waist have a 34 inseam
I wore 32x34 for over 30 years until my thyroid went on the fritz. They were damned difficult to find, especially in adult styles, so something must have changed recently. The Amazon pants I've bought have too short front pockets, but they do sometimes have 35x34.
Now usually in full sizes with no width indication
I finally found sneakers comfortable and narrow enough for constitutionals on my scrawny feet--Puma Enzo--and the soft rubber soles show wear in weeks, followed by the inside upper disintegrating against my heels. The eyeholes quickly broke on the first pair I found. My latest pair are 7 months old but should have been replaced in December.
Lynch's comment has enabled me finally to decipher "Mulholland Drive."
Levi's made corduroy flared jeans with a low waistline in sky blue at exactly the age I was skinny enough for them to fit like a glove, 9 or 10 back in the 1960s. I grew, style changed, and I've never been that happy in my pants, so to speak, since.
""I am searching for a good pair of pants. I never found a pair of pants that I just love. If they’re not right, which they never are, it’s a sadness."
I suppose this could be the best single sentence showing the vacuousness of Western Civilization in the year 2024. It's a sadness.
Anyway, when we moved to Florida almost 8 years ago, we were told we'd end up wearing t-shirts and shorts, casual shoes with no socks, or sandals. Period. Well, it hasn't quite happened like that, but I must admit I haven't bought a pair of nice slacks since moving here- just new jeans. And the jeans barely make it out of the closet during the summer months. So...whatever fashion was in 2017, is where I left it. I do need to get a couple pair of pants just to have. For when I leave Florida and enter Other Places. Like Boston- to see the kids. They still wear clothes up there. Weird.
I thought we men had it easy: just buy Levi's 501s or 505s.
What Davis and Strauss put together 150 years ago seems to have held up.
And I think they're smart enough not to change the formula.
When you need a new pair, you can buy them without even trying them on.
(Having spoken to women who don't have it half as easy.)
"and tried to tell us, 'Everyone can wear this every day, and it’ll be easy to find a pair that makes sense for your body' — but it’s actually an enormous challenge."
I'm 61 yrs old, I can't remember when not wearing pants every day was an option if I wasn't alone in my own home. Nor can I remember going pantless at home. Women I suppose have the option of not wearing pants everyday.
The only "make sense for your body" issue I've had is that when you are fat, defying gravity is tricky. But there's no amount of tailoring that can fix that. It's cinch belt or suspenders.
I'm an old man, but can't remember when someone might have looked at me to the point my pants impacted attraction. And now I don't worry about the opinion of others.
“I like old men. They can be wonderful bastards because they have nothing to lose. The only people who can be themselves are babies and old bastards."
--John Updike
A lot of these soy boy pants don't fit my calves.
So, baggy pants are in again. That's good news - I'll once again be fashionable. I see skinny-legged guys in skinny jeans and inwardly snicker a little, because I know they don't work for a living. Trying bending over to lift something heavy when you're wearing denim leotards. The guys that do work for a living have been miserable. You can't move in these things.
Carhartt used to make a terrific classical jean, the B160. It was straight-legged and plenty roomy, and if you were capable of putting your leg behind your ear, the jeans wouldn't stop you. They stopped making them a dozen years ago, unfortunately, because they apparently thought men prefer to have their jeans halfway down their ass in a permanent wedgie, all the way to their toes.
Key still makes some pretty good ones, pretty heavy 13oz denim and really, really deep pockets. My Samsung in its leather holder fits all the way in the back pocket, and I can just about straighten my arm out plumbing the depths of the side pockets. Try that in soy-boy wear.
I'm convinced that designers sit together backstage at awards shows & giggle at the outrageous shit they made their celebrity wear in public. "Dude, wait until you see the crap she's wearing. LOLOLOL
Luckily I discovered the fatal flaw of perfectly fitting clothes on a trip to Hong Kong years ago. Having bought suits off the rack for years, I decided to get one of those "custom-fit in 24 hours" suits. It was quite the experience. They measured every conceivable bending or bulging part except my Johnson and my boys. And at noon the next day they delivered the suit and two shirts that fit absolutely perfect, standing, sitting, walking.
The fatal flaw? It only fit perfectly until the next Thanksgiving, and only randomly after that for about another year. So I put it away in a glass case (much like toreadors store their suit of lights, or Marines keep their original dress blues). The perfect fit, archived.
Even Chicago Jesus went from people idolizing the crease in his pants to ridicule about "mom jeans"
no one is safe
Pants, man, been a lifelong struggle…
As someone who has vacillated between 175 and 195 lb for the last 25 years, pants have been the bane of my existence. To be sure, had I just stayed the same size for my entire life, I could have made things easier on myself.
Is it just me or everyone else, oftentimes do pants feel too tight when sitting but too loose when standing? What’s the deal with that?
But things have gotten easier for me. Here’s how I did it. Move to Florida in 2013 so pants are only a work thing. Shorts most other times. Global pandemic in 2020 so pants aren’t even a work thing anymore. I’m back to the office once a week, so I need one decent pair of pants nowadays.
But Florida and shorts have saved my life. I highly recommend it.
When I was younger, the width of ties used to vary. Sometimes they were wide, and sometimes they were skinny. Back then I remember knowing what was the proper width to wear. So at one point in my life I was fashion conscious. I might even have been hip for a few years back in the late sixties or early seventies.....For the last thirty or forty years I've worn Levis and worn them until they wore out. For formal occasions, I had khakis. Somewhere along the way, Levis got fancy and you had to choose among a variety of styles. Iirc, I always used to buy what was on sale....I bought a new pair of pants recently. They had cargo pockets. Cargo pockets are a useful innovation. Not every change is for the worse.
Such an easy solution for me: Elastic waist skirts! They can be any length between knee and ankle and I am happy.
My wife has a person that helps her buy clothes so for Christmas she had the woman buy clothes for me. Loved it all except the jeans- yes to the bit of stretchy no to the muffin top...
...why they brought back the high waisted jeans for women I'll never understand. God, you all look awful...
This is why so many women wear yoga pants. Yoga pants always fit. That doesn't mean they're attractive or flattering or even preferred. But they fit.
@Temujin: You think David Lynch is being vacuous here? I think he’s being mordantly hilarious.
David Lynch: "I am searching for a good pair of pants."
I've searched for pants on more than one occasion, but they were pants I already owned, pants I'd been wearing not that long ago.
Donovan had some pants he really loved:
Do you have some jeans that you really love
Ones that you feel so groovy in?
You don't even mind if they start to fray
That only makes them nicer still
I love my jeans, I love my jeans
My jeans are so comfortably lovely
I love my jeans, I love my jeans
My jeans are so comfortably lovely
When they are taken to the cleaners
I can't wait to get them home again
Yes, I take 'em to the cleaners
And there they wash them in a stream
Scrub a rub dub dub
And there they wash them in a stream
Know what I mean
You will never see anyone outside the pictures in the NYT wearing these giant pants.
"I thought we men had it easy: just buy Levi's 501s or 505s.
When you need a new pair, you can buy them without even trying them on."
I've bought 501s for fifty years. The most difficult part of the process is figuring out what size to get but you only have to do that once. Find the best price (online is fine, it's not necessary to see them in hand), order the size you want, wash them a couple of times to shrink them and you're good to go.
The only pair of pants that I own right now that are long enough and have no frayed cuff ends are blue jeans, bought a couple of years ago. And they are in the dirty pile.
I have a meeting this afternoon and have to wear some frayed slacks that I bought in 2018 or so for travel. As with all my clothes, I wear them out, and wear them out.
By this time next month I'll probably have switched over to shorts until next October or November.
Does this mean my closetful of M C Hammer pants are coming back?
Even these pants?
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/240303-UglyPants.php
John Henry
Levis at Costco or Marshalls. Done.
Parachute pants. Break it down. Hammer time.
I have not owned blue jeans since 1980. They weren't allowed at my prep school in the 70s, then the one pair I had got too tight. I prefer corduroy, even if Wikipedia claims it isn't "cord of the king."
Reagan said the way to get jeans to fit perfectly was to get them totally wet the first time you put them on, and then do things until they're totally dry. I suppose that works in the warm, dry West.
NYDJ (Not your Daughters Jeans) used to make great pants for us older-ish gals. higher waist line - a bit more room in the legs - but still slimming. yay!
Now they are all too tight around the thigh. andthe fabric is so thick - it's too hot to wear. I have very average size thighs. Not fat - not super thin. That's because I'm not 16 years old.
These stupid designers think we are all super skinny teenagers.
All the trends are lame. Too skinny... too tight... too blobby... too clown show. I'm with David 100%.
As someone else on this board noted the other day, Oscar Wilde explained this for us many years ago. "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
Pants are a different sort of problem because men have quite different feelings about how far above or below the navel the beltline should be. And this is reflected in manufacturers varying the "rise" of pairs of pants wwithout explicitly informing the customer how much "rise" the pants have. Pants should list waist, inseam and tell us the number of inches between the crotch seam and waistband.
Men like me tend to be impatient shoppers for clothing. It feels a little vain, a little too calculating. Just make sure they're not ugly, don't have dumb pockets, have the right fabric, are at the spot on the spectrum you need vis a vis formality or not, and are 36x30. I understand that's irrational, but there it is.
Pants and trousers are different. Trousers are what comes with a suit. Trousers come with a waist size, a split waist construction, rise and unfinished bottoms. Generally one buys trousers to fit the hips, the inseam and waist can easily be altered.
Pants are usually "wash pants" like 501s or pants that have a solid waistband. They are sold with waist - inseam on the label.
"Go get in your POS Leaf ... and just go away"
Finding the cognitive dissonance inherent in those two statements is left as an exercise for the reader.
Temujin,
Even when I lived in Central Africa (at < 5°N latitude) shorts were not on the menu. That's because my ancestry was from more like 50°N or higher - - England, Scotland, Sweden. We fear the (direct) sun...
"Oh well... La-di-da la-di-da la-la."
NYT Magazine today. Cover article.
It's the way vatos have dressed in LA for many years.
Duh.
Wrangler, 34 x 32. Fit perfect. I buy them from Amazon. What are all y'all complaining about?
@Joe Bar
Whenever I hear something like this, I assume the person is supremely lucky or trolling me.
"There's also this quote from David Lynch: "I am searching for a good pair of pants. I never found a pair of pants that I just love. If they’re not right, which they never are, it’s a sadness."
Maybe he should buy a dress.
Most guys, unless they're buying a suit. close enough is close enough.
Ampersand,
"Men like me tend to be impatient shoppers for clothing"
Warren Lewis, in his biography of his much more famous brother C.S. "Jack" Lewis, wrote something along the lines of this (I'm just quoting from memory):
"Jack's manner of dress suggested a hurried acceptance of the first thing offered by the haberdasher -- which is pretty much exactly how it went."
"Whenever I hear something like this, I assume the person is supremely lucky or trolling me."
I get 34x32 too- only I buy Levis, not Wrangler. Not trolling or feeling particularly lucky- that's just the size that fits.
Lynch should try Cotton Traders. They were the first business casual pants I ever liked. The only problems are that they make limited sizes and colors, and the shipping from the UK is slow and somewhat costly.
If you work for a living Carhart makes some rugged jeans.
Since moving to AZ I wear shorts for like 10 months out of the year.
SHORTS, ALTHOUSE, I WEAR SHORTS ALL. THE. TIME. I'M WEARING SHORTS RIGHT NOW MUUUWWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Anyhoo.
The Lynch quote is just terribly Lynchian, cracked me up.
I was a jeans guy most of my adult life, Levi's, varying around 501s, 505s, whatever. I was constantly amazed and annoyed that I could buy two of the same model and size, from the same rack of the same store and they'd both fit differently. Then after wearing shorts most of the year, jeans started feeling uncomfortable to me, and had to go in search of the Perfect Pants. Some form of Dockers has worked out the best, with elastic waist and perhaps even elasticky fabric (I'm not at all overweight, just very athletic and bendy).
Kate said...
This is why so many women wear yoga pants. Yoga pants always fit. That doesn't mean they're attractive or flattering or even preferred. But they fit.
Plus they make your @ss look better.
AFTCO Original shorts. Nirvana.
Or, to quote the late Ogden Nash (and this is from memory):
"Sure, dress your lower limbs in pants,
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance;
Have you seen yourself retreating?"
Just buy one pant, try it, wear it about town, see if you like it, then buy the other one if you do.
I love the English language, how else could I say anything so silly?
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