Seriously, how do their pants not fall all the way down?

[SkeptiJess]

About 8 years ago I had stopped at a red light to turn onto my street when a kid skateboarded past me on the sidewalk. His huge saggy pants lost their battle with gravity just as he made the turn. Plop! – they puddled around his ankles, and Bam! – he wiped out on his skateboard. I was too worried about him – he really fell hard – to be as amused by this scene as I might have been, but my 2 kids in the backseat (about 5th and 6th grade at the time) laughed their asses off. I stopped the car to see if the kid needed help but, fortunately, he had managed to fall sideways towards the grass, rather than onto the sidewalk or curb.

For the most part, I tend to see kid’s fashion choices as amusing rather than irritating, but after that I always thought those baggy pants were kind of dangerous!

[e-bow]

@BrainGlutton

I thought it had a different origin. My Dad used to teach junior high school. When he went on a diet and his clothes started fitting loosely, some of the kids asked, "Is you housin’?" Meaning, dressing like a county jailhouse inmate – most of whom wear clothes a bit too big for them because they’re not issued anything in quite the right size, and too small won’t work. And apparently that look become a hip-hop fashion statement.

I’ve heard the prison-myth repeated a million times and no one seems able to back it up with anything concrete. The logic seems to be that young black men are supposedly all felons, so of course their fashion is prison-inspired.

I prefer the explanation offered by rapper Killer Mike in his song “That’s Life”:

We wear our fuckin’ pants big because our mothers were too poor to buy our size, so they had to buy two or three sizes up. Call it what it is, nigga, poverty.

This is similar to the origin of the oversized white tee trend - white tees are cheap clothing that can be bought in bulk packs. If you’re a poor urban youth, I guess you make fashionable what you’ve got, not what you don’t have.

[Captain_C]

My coworkers and I always assumed it was because they spent their belt money on “bling”.

[Darryl_Lict]

@friedo

Around here in the past few months it seems the trend is to wear the bills completely flat.

I wonder if this is because of Cardinals rookie righthander Anthony Reyes, starter of Game 1 in the World Series, who irons his brim perfectly flat. It’s a mildly odd but distinctive look, and I can see why people might want to emulate him. It’s not stupid, uncomfortable, and impractical like letting your pants hang around your thighs.

[Mesquite-oh]

@Malthus

Nope, gotta disagree - while teenage fads are generally extreme, they are usually at least an attempt to be “sexy” in some way - lots of people find the flapper look sexy; beehives, disco, Maddonna – all were found “sexy” by at least some people at the time, oldsters included (the styles were considered “shameless”, “immoral” etc.). It is only in retrospect, after a reaction against their ubiquity and absurdity set in, that they seem silly.
At the other extreme there is of course stuff like punk.
The difference here is that just about everyone can at once see that wearing pants that make you look like an ill-dressed toddler, and actually impede your ability to walk without your pants falling down, is amusing rather than sexy, slutty, intimidating, etc.

Keep in mind that these baggy panted, big jewelry, crooked cap wearing guys are trying to be attractive or sexy to you . They are not trying to be attractive to your sister, daughter, or niece. They don’t even care that you exist. They live in a whole other world. They don’t watch “The Office,” they don’t know who Monty Python is, and they have never seen a Toyota Prius. They are trying to project an image and communicate to another type of person. I had the opportunity today:rolleyes: to go to a mall in what most would consider the skanky part of town. I saw guys with big jerseys, big shorts, big chains, prison tats, neck tats, marijuana leaf tats, silly hats of all types and most of these guys had a wife/girl and many had kids. The guys who didn’t have a girl with them were working it, and there were some girls who were noticing these daring and rakish young men in their fabulously stylish hip hop wear. I think it is dumb, but if there weren’t at least a segment of girls finding it intriguing or sexy, it would cease to exist.

Oh yeah, I want to hear from a guy who thought that beehives were sexy. I find it very hard to believe.

[Seven]

I always giggle when I see the saggy pant kids. Mostly because I imagine their bodies being 4 foot long and their legs being only a foot long. Little stubby legs on a long body.

I just figure they’re fans of Dorf on Golf.

[GingerOfTheNorth]

@Swallowed My Cellphone

I was in highschool in the 80s. This I remember well. Only now, I’ve noticed that people are wearing two polo shirts at the same time with popped collars.

They did that then, too. And tied handkerchiefs around their legs at the same time.

@Trunk

In Baltimore, it seems like I don’t see as many baggies strapped around the ass as I do insanely long t-shirts, like down the the knee.

And occasionally insanely long, too big, backwards and inside out. I don’t get it. I think that means I’m old.

[monstro]

Tailored jeans are coming back in style, as MandaJo says.

One particular fad that is freaking me out is the tight-saggy pants that skaters are now wearing. The jeans are tight around the legs and they taper (!), but the seat and crotch sag, making the wearer look like they’re carrying a load.

@e-bow

I’ve heard the prison-myth repeated a million times and no one seems able to back it up with anything concrete. The logic seems to be that young black men are supposedly all felons, so of course their fashion is prison-inspired.

I have to admit it irks me too. It may have originated from prison fashion–I don’t know enough to say–but the majority of wearers just think it’s cool.

The same goes for rolling the leg up on your pants. There was a thread a few years back about how this was some kind of twisted gang sign. When I was in high school, lots of boys (and even some girls) did this just to be cool. Anyone who’s ridden a bike while wearing pants has also done it. But because it’s an “urban” fad, it has to be criminal in some way.