Something that used to be easy for me now takes a ridiculously long time: buying a new pair of jeans. That’s because I like jeans. The blue things that hang down and cover my legs.
But you can’t buy those anymore, at least not the kind I grew up with. Now they’re all “easy fit” and “low riders.” Listen, there’s nothing “easy fit” about jeans that are designed to barely hang off the edge of your hips, showing everyone your underwear. There is no Calvin Klein. It’s now Calvin Crack.
The store had a kind of style--and I am not making this up--called “Loose Straight.” What the hell is that, a heterosexual who dances to rhythm and blues? Also “Low Rise Straight.” But it didn’t come with prescription pills that take care of that kind of thing, so I passed.
When they do have the style of jeans I want, they’re always labeled “Classic Fit"--apparently because it’s completely old fashioned to not want to show the world your ass. When I was a kid, you could tell the old men because they wore their pants almost up to their neck, as though they expected to be wading in a lake. But I guess the tables have turned. Kids will be pointing to me and saying “Look, his jeans actually taper to his ankle, rather than acting like little mini blue parachutes, and it closes around his waist. Nice look, pops!” I’m depleting all my savings to buy every goddamn “classic fit” in my size that I can find. I have a feeling they’ll be gone the next time my jeans cycle forces me to go out hunting for them.
Yeah, ‘classic fit’ is code for ‘old guy pants’, the same way ‘husky’ was code for, uh, ‘fat’ when my Mom used to buy those for my brother when he was a kid. From Sears, of course.
And what looks really silly is like today, when the boys got nicely dressed to go to the Mother’s Day brunch and, wearing Dockers and a shirt tucked in for a change, still insisted on wearing their stupid pants (with a belt) way down on their hipbones.
Kids.
See you are lucky you aren’t a woman, because Saturday Night Live would do a skit about you called “Dad Jeans” like they do mom jeans.
Apparently all jeans for women must not only be low riders but boot cut. I hate boot cut. I don’t wear boots. I want straight legged natural waist jeans, and apparently so does my grandma.
I’m quite sick of seeing low riders on anybody now. Most of my working week I never see the outside world except when I’m out eating. And I really don’t need to see crack when I’m trying to eat.
Now this is a fashion conundrum that is basically identical for men and women, and that is so very heartening.
And also, why is it that jeans are simultaneously the most casually comfortable and most anxiety-inspiring article of clothing?
did you happen to watch SNL and see the “mom jeans” fake commercial last night? it kind of cracked me up - so to speak.
being a hip-y sort (and no longer a hippie sort), i truly appreciate both loose fit and low-rise. they are flattering in ways my ass and i both would have thought impossible. but i still giggle when i realize how “low” low-rise can mean, and i hear echoes of denis leary : “27 inches of underwear!”
good luck with your jeans hunt, gerg. i recommend thrift stores.
D’OH! and having written that, i read lisa v’s comment and realize the SNL joke has already been made ...
blah.
The thing is, I ALREADY wore all these clothes in the 70’s, and I don’t want to wear them anymore. —Although, those hip-hugger palazzo pants were so comfortable on my adolescent figure. Silky and flowing like a water colour in the rain.
So, this fits in great with the story of the 19 yr. old guy at work today (I’m a waitress) who’s pants actually rode so low that they fell off at a table . “Happy Mothers Day...here are my boxer briefs.” yeah...I’m sure the 90 yr. old grandma got a kick out of that one...Don’t think it helped his tip to much either.
Hi Greg,
have been lurking around here for some weeks, and have now blog-rolled you, assuming you’re not going to mind… so do you? I hope not, I hope not, I hope not…
greg - romy has it - people with hips/asses need those cuts. the gym has nothing on them.
I know the conundrum well. Do they think Boot Cut jeans will go with all my “B-U-M Euipment” Sweatshirts? NO. Can I wear Low-Rise jeans with my vast collection of T-Shirts that say “Button Your Fly” or “Co-Ed Naked So-And-So?” NO.
It’s getting to the point where I almost can’t wear my shirt that has a picture of Bugs Bunny and the Tazmanian Devil’s fronts on the front...and a picture of Bugs Bunny and the Tazmanian Devil’s backs on the back.
I get boy jeans from Wal-mart. They are a) blue, b) cut the old-fashioned way, and c) cheap.
I probably look like a dork but least I don’t feel like a ninny.
Progga, as long as the header isn’t something like “People Who Suck” and then a list with my site, Zach Braff’s, etc.
I stick with Husky Toughskins. Same as when I was 8.
Oh Greg, you poor lost soul. Jeans (and all fashions) are about tribe identification. Yours is a tribe that is slowly dying out and no longer being marketed to (unless you count IRA’s and supplemental health insurance) and it’s unsettling. Do you need a hug?
“I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.” -Abe Simpson
Dress shirt, tie, and jeans also seems to be dying out. Thank the Lord!
*snort* Now you know what it’s like to be a girl!!! try adding being short into that equation. Occasionally it means hitting the gold mine and finding that the low rise jeans are an acceptable level on me. But usually it just means that proportions are all jacked up and I have an extra 4 inches of gap at the waist band. Or the crotch hits me mid thigh and I have to take very small steps.
classic fit means tapered leg.
which means that the ankle will bunch around your shoe and not lay right.
You really should try the straight leg.
**this has been unsolicited advice from meredith. please take it or leave it at your whim, but i suggest taking it.
Greg, I think we can all feel your pain, but as Elizabeth points out, women have been dealing with this sh*t forever. Furthermore, imagine your dilemma compounded by a mysterious sizing system (i.e., not waist size, just random numbers) that varies from store to store.
Imagine trying on three different sizes of the same damn low rise, straight leg jean in each store because you can be anything from a size 4 to a size 10, depending on how much cash you’re willing to shell out.
I’m just saying.
The ‘Tapered Leg’ look = what my teenagers call with disdain ‘Ankle Chokers’. Too bad sweats aren’t socially acceptable for the workplace. It would make life so much easier.
I concur with meredith about the straight leg. Tapered is a no no. Please don’t tell me that you wear a belt and tuck your shirt in too. Is your collar up on your Izod and are you sporting a Members Only jacket?
Greg, please go with the flow. I totally feel you, as it took me a while too before I would go low waist and boot cut. I am so psyched I made the switch. Now, whenever I put on my more classic styled calvinkleins, I immediately take them off. “Yuck yuck yuck” I tell myself. What was I thinking? What did other people think of me when I wore them with confidence? They are sooo SNL mom-styled garments of grossness. Good for gardening, bad for everything else.
Uh, I bought purple pants accidentally. A week later I was reading a magazine that said to take pants to a window with natural light in order to avoid that happening. Maybe I should take someone with me that isn’t color-blind too.
Unfortunately, I don’t allow myself to write publicly about:
# Specific personal life-related things
I don’t know, Greg, but I think keeping your ass covered, literally, is a pretty “specific personal life-related thing.”
P.S. Thanks for the prompt in choosing my tattoo… :D
i htink i was truly happiest when i wore scrubs everyday. now there’s some comfort for you!
Personally, I was always partial to the “paper-bag-waist” cut, popular in the early to mid-90s. It wasn’t so much the fit as it was the idea that my jeans would have something in common with a 40 ouncer.
Ok, I was gonna say “dude, you are totally a geek to wear that belly button covering tapered at the ankles shit.” But then I realized my husband still likes that classic fit crap or if not that, carpenter jeans. So if I call you a geek, then I have to call him one, too. Oh, what the hell, you’re both geeks.