Why Is Everyone Freaking Out About Pants?

Earlier this week, a friend texted me: “Why are people talking about pants as if there have never been pants before?” (She asked to be identified as “an anonymous woman who has known about pants for years.”) It was true: my friend had committed a mortal sin—logging on—and discovered that the timeline was absolutely flooded with pants news. It began last week, when Harry Styles shared the cover of his upcoming album, a fish-eye shot of the singer disco-dancing in a pair of Gucci wide-leg sailor trousers, photographed by the great glossy-surrealist fashion photographer Tim Walker. This week, there was Rachel Syme’s ode to the high-waisted jeans on the New Yorker’s website, which drove a legion of women to rhapsodize about their own experiences with high-waisted jeans and their alleged butt-enhancement qualities. “If your high-waisted pants aren’t giving you a wedgie or a yeast infection, are they too low-cut?” tweeted…the New Yorker. (To be fair, the pants worn by man who inspired New Yorker mascot Eustace Tilley give Styles a run for his money.) Bringing the pants craze to a fever pitch was the release of another fish-eye Walker image of Styles, reclined in a pose that exaggerated his pant legs into two huge whales. They looked totally outrageous. Skinny jeans haven’t been the default silhouette for a few years now, but it felt like Styles was throwing down the gauntlet. You thought my pants were big from that angle? Check them out from the ground! Read more at GQ.