Driving home from work yesterday I saw two, how shall we say - urban teenagers, trying to run to the bus stop. Trying is the key word.
They both had the ‘falling down’ pants look and watching them run was extremely comical. Imagine someone running who’s in a constant state of trip while trying to keep your thighs far enough apart so that your drawers don’t fall down. Since they both had books and stuff to carry they couldn’t spare a hand for pulling the pants up so they could run more efficiently.
So, how does the average Joe keep his pants in a constant state of perma-slip without having them just drop to the ankles? Suspenders? I’ve never seen any…
Trick pants that just look like they’re falling down (with two waist lines)? I suspect someone makes 'em like that.
Some other rigging?
I’d guess that a few years ago when the look first came out that there wasn’t a standard but that now there is.
Concerning “trick” pants, they do make pants that have the pockets about a foot below the waistline, so it looks like they’re alot lower than they are. I think it’s pretty dumb myself, but to each their own.
I lost some weight recently and trying to work in the yard with my regular old jeans was nigh impossible. Finally I started wearing a belt when just “rolling over” the top of the pants to tighten them up quit working (even tho I hate belts). I will say this… that sensation of your pants falling down just bugged the ELS out of me. I don’t know how these kids can stand it, much less why they’d encourage it.
Around my campus, most of them walk all crooked-legged trying to keep them up, or just pull them up every 5 or so steps. I guess wearing a belt helps keep the pants stuck, but it still looks stupid.
Just recently saw a young man in my neighborhood playing basketball in the church parking lot with his pants LITERALLY around his ankles. He had some wild boxers on, but his pants were skooshed down in a pile around his ankles! ON PURPOSE!
Exactly, now imagine trying to running to catch a moving bus like this.
I will see no less than 200 kids with pants like this in about 2 hours when I drive past two high schools on the way home from work. I’m thinking about taking pictures. It’s crazy stupid.
By the way, what is the look called? It must be in the urban dictionary somewhere.
Off-the-waist-falling-pants-with-extra-long-shirt-while-wearing-boxers-look?
Is it possible that the pants are stitched to the boxers in some manner?
As a substitute teacher for High Schools, I see this all the time. It is generally referred to as ‘sagging’. While it does seem rediculous, I generally write it off as one of many adolescent fasion trends that seem to serve solely to antagonize authority figures.
They feel as though people who say something like “Why do you wear that? you look stupid” are individuals who are too old to understand.
Isn’t it nuts how the looks that used to define ‘slob’ are now the height of fashion? From hats turned backwards to shirts hanging out below sweaters to pants not holding up?
I think it looks extremely stupid and can’t imagine why anyone would like the look.
<hijack=slight>
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away in college I used to work in a self-serve gas station/PDQ store. While the place was robbed occasionally (never occurred to me), we quickly developed a robber profile.
We found anyone who came into the sore wearing expensive, non-laced running shoes was not seen as a threat. That’s because (at the time) none of the wearers were dumb enough to rob the place and risk running out of their expensive shoes. Not only was the fashion of wearing expensive non-laced running shoes important to some kids, the prestige, ego, whatever you want to call it, was just as important.
Nowadays it appears those with sagging pants wear them that way to make a statement with no practical thought behind it. Perhaps that’s why one often hears of a robbery but the suspect is caught so easily because they never think it through. They are caught literally with their pants down.
</hijack>
I have given this “how do they stay up?” thing some thought, too.
I decided, in all honesty, that these kids must have HUGE packages and that’s what keeps their pants up. None of them have hips or asses or anything else to hang those pants on.
Back when I worked in a college bookstore and all the little freshmen would come in dressing this way, I’d see the kids grabbing onto the crotches of their pants whenever they had to make some quick movement, and constantly tugging the pants upwards otherwise. The crotch of the pants was used kind of like the handlebars on a bike or something. Grab on, steer in the direction you’re going.
Very odd looking, but I guess it kept them from exposing their underwear more than they already had.
