Rosie Scott Blog about Women

Baggy or slim? Boxy or narrow? This fall, the pants debate extends to the guys, too. Below, one Vogue editor tells us why this season, inspired by the likes of Vetements and Patrik Ervell, he’s opting for a wider cut. And over here, another point of view.

The first time I saw a guy in wide-leg pants, I didn’t know what to think. It was the early ’90s and the skater wearing them was a grade below me in high school. These days, a slouchy look is back in fashion—see the cult menswear designer Craig Green, for example, whose loose, boxy cuts appeal to women as well as men. But back then, those kinds of proportions looked really odd to my eye: The skater’s outsize pant legs were nearly big enough to obscure his Airwalks. This was before big pants had moved beyond hip-hop, skater, and raver circles and entered the mainstream, so I had no frame of reference for such an outfit.

But I found the style intriguing, and—as these things often go at that age—within a matter of months, I was sporting oversize trousers, too. For the next few years, loose-fitting pants and extra-large T-shirts became my go-to look. (I also skated, though never very well.)

At some point in college, when many of the guys on campus started dressing this way, I gave up on baggy proportions and embraced the slimmer silhouette worn by characters in Trainspotting and favored by indie rock bands like The Make-Up. I was decidedly over big pants, and for years afterward my attitude would be, the skinnier, the better.

It was the late ’90s then, and Helmut Lang and flat-front pants held sway, though many men’s brands were still pushing relaxed denim. Hedi Slimane was a few years away from becoming creative director of Dior Homme, where his tiny suits and skintight jeans would help enshrine the slim fit. So I resorted to buying vintage and wearing women’s button-downs and jeans to achieve the look I wanted.

By the mid-2000s, though, finding slimmer menswear was easier. Designers like Scott Sternberg of Band of Outsiders and Thom Browne were cutting their clothing closer to the body. Toward the end of the aughts, the style migrated from the runway to the mall, where the Gap, H&M, Uniqlo, and other retailers helped to popularize the skinny-jeans trend, which continues today.

But an ultra-slim look no longer appeals to me the way it did even a few years ago. A looser, boxier silhouette seems more modern and represents an evolutionary step beyond the skinny fits I wore for so long. My interest in moving past this look was prompted in part by the recent men’s collections, as well as the slack, elegant styles worn by David Bowie and Bryan Ferry in the ’70s, but I’ve also been studying the slouchier vintage designs of Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto. And I’ve drawn inspiration from current womenswear, paying attention not only to labels like Vetements, but also to the way my wife, my colleagues at Vogue, and a lot of women on the streets of New York are dressing. They’re showing that choosing comfortable clothing doesn’t have to mean a rejection of style, and the voluminous, architectural trousers that many of them wear offer another way of presenting oneself.

Over the summer, I took a stab at a looser silhouette with relaxed linen trousers from Our Legacy and a carrot-fit canvas pair from Death to Tennis that were loose on the upper leg and tapered to the ankle. After years of skinny pants, the sense-memory evoked by fabric swooshing against my legs as I walked really brought me back. It also felt very liberating, and led me to my Halloween costume for this year: a ’90s wannabe skater in a knit cap; extra-large band T-shirt; Vans; and old, oversize Dickies work pants. It’s probably the most comfortable I’ve been in ages, and my wife was definitely a fan—she wants me to break out that look more often.

Now I’m ready to go even baggier. This fall, I’m eyeing Patrik Ervell’s monumental, Brutalism-channeling skater pants. And for spring I’m fascinated by Raf Simons’s leg-flooding, rave-and-Northern soul–influenced trousers. They’re a departure from his stovepipe jeans of recent years, and offer the most exaggerated—and exciting—silhouette of the coming season. It’s a shape that, while it does tie in to the ’90s revival—or perhaps refracts the ’70s through the prism of the ’90s—paradoxically also seems attuned to the way we live now, in which we prize dressing well, but with comfort and ease over the tightly fitted rigors of the very recent past.

green prom dresses

You should also see:

http://georgiamrris.bloggerspoint.dk/2015/11/03/rag-bones-city-chic/