An old school friend of mine recently told me that he had moved on from the skinny trousers he had been wearing for probably 20 years and now only wears wide leg trousers. To me, this means we have reached the peak of the bell curve.
In fashion there are always early adopters and late adopters, and the media often gets their predictions wrong. It’s enough to see two fashion designers drop an Oxford bag down the runway and scream that wide legs are back.
In reality, it takes menswear designers years to push for general adoption by the public. Most men don’t care, or they only change when their partner changes enough. So why do we need to reach the top of the bell curve distribution?
There are many other signs that the pendulum has swung.
Suit Supply, known for its skinny tailoring, First wide leg fit Duca launched in 2022. Uniqlo, which makes money by offering universal basic products, sticks as close to the middle as possible. First wide leg fit released in 2023.
Good visual data comes from magazines like L’Etiquette, which publishes one or two fashion photos in each issue. You can see issue after issue how their pants have gotten wider over the nearly 10 years they’ve been in operation.
This was something we specifically discussed in our cover story. The latest permanent style magazine.
So should you follow suit and switch to wider pants? My philosophy has always been to follow these trends, but to do so slowly and conservatively.
After all, menswear trends move very slowly (perhaps every 15 to 20 years), and it’s foolish to pretend that styles will last forever. It’s been over 25 years since Hedi Slimane created the first skinny suit, and that was a long time ago, from 1960 to 1985.
I have been constantly loosening my pants in recent years. Partly because I had gained a little weight, but also because it felt better to cut deeper. I’m a few years behind other people I know in that respect, but I think that reflects my innate conservatism (and probably the conservatism of PS readers as well).
My suit trousers have historically been around 19-20cm at the cuffs. Go back to My first suit by Cifonelli 13 years ago, you can do it See our analysis The cuff circumference is about 19.5cm. Something more English-ish my richard anderson tuxedoIt was about 21cm.
It’s strange to think that the pants on that tuxedo felt wide to me at the time. It’s almost like cognitive dissonance. In my mind, two contradictory facts are clear: the pants are wider and they are narrower than the ones I am wearing now (some Whitcomb pants are 22.5 cm long).
Today, 22s and 22.5s are often worn in my custom-made trousers. For example, the Assisi pants above. As is always the case with good brands and tailors, I was influenced by brands like Assisi and Bryceland. (The difference between jeans styles is usually about 2cm. Bryceland’s 133 and 133S have a hem difference of about 2cm.)
The great thing about custom pants is that this level of alteration is similar to the amount of inlays the tailor leaves inside the pants. My Whitcomb products can extend up to 2.5cm in width by that size, for example on the back of each leg. And when I wear pants, I ask them to leave that much behind.
Contrast this with someone more fashion-forward, like Japanese designer Yasuto Kamoshita. in interview with usHe said most of his trousers are slim, measuring 18cm, but now he wants to stretch them to 22cm. That’s a bigger swing.
(Remember that these widths are not absolute, but relative to height, width and shoe size. So 22cm is proportionally wider for him than for me.)
The bigger problem with altering custom pants like this is that the desired rise often depends on the width. there is Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this. There’s usually some inlay in there, but you’ll need a few new ones, including a longer zipper to get the front up.
Wearing casual, ready-made trousers and jeans is also much more difficult. There’s little you can do about it other than keep it as conservative as possible and accept that a pair of jeans may last you 10 to 15 years, not a lifetime. But 15 years isn’t that bad for a pair of pants.
(Personally, I’ve always felt that this is one of the biggest mistakes with customization: that it lasts a lifetime, even generations. If it does, it won’t at least be the same fit you were obsessed with in the first place. And its longevity largely depends on your ability to change it.)
If you’re not sure, it’s a good idea to pull out some custom pants and see how they feel. Maybe something casual like flowing linen would suit you. For example, you may feel the same pleasure when you wear a new pair of shoes as you do when you polish old shoes. They got a new lease of life and it became exciting again.
Some predicted that this trend would no longer occur. The fragmentation of media and the overall atomization of society means that there is no dominant narrative and no trend across society.
Certainly the trend is less prevalent than it was in the past. But at least it survives in menswear. Men like to wear what other men are wearing, and most men I see now are wearing wide-leg pants. Internationally online and locally in the playground. Dads wear stretch pants from Gramicci or Service Works. Teenagers wear 90s Levi’s or Carhartt.
And as if one last cue was needed, some designers have already started rebelling against the mainstream, including Dior, Prada and Thom Browne, who debuted skinny pants this year. But don’t worry. It will be at least another 10 years before it comes near us. Plenty of time to get out the flannel.
What can you see where you live? Have you changed your pants in the past few years? Let us know below. Everyone loves it when we share it.
Here are other examples of wide-legged models from the brands we cover:
