> CD #111: Big pants, again
I don’t read for escape, usually. I read to find out what other people think, how other people make sense of this bewildering thing called life. And every once in a while, I’ll come across a piece of writing that shows me I’m not alone in this world—that there are people out there who share my values, my ideals, my obsessions, and also my goofy way of looking at things—and it reminds me to stay open. Yes, everything is terrible, but still, there is potential for joy.
Pure delight is what I felt when reading Why Are Pants So Big (Again)? (NYT gift link) by Jonah Weiner, an in-depth analysis of the big pants trend, but also a treatise on fashion, cultural fragmentation, aging, and technology. You should stop reading my words and go read his now.
But in case you don’t do that, here’s my favourite part:
It’s funny: There’s an age before which it’s actively commendable to explore and make mistakes, and an age after which exploration and mistake-making become the embarrassing evidence of a lost soul. Look at those pants. This poor bastard still doesn’t have it figured out.
But that, in the end, might be the biggest fantasy that attaches to clothes — namely, that any of us can ever have it figured out, arriving at a place of such self-knowledge that we no longer err. The way you look in clothes is, in fact, a profoundly flawed and paradoxical marker of self-knowledge, because the way you look in clothes is, ultimately, not just up to you. It’s up to other people. What’s more, as with any social compact, it’s subject to an endlessly shifting, inescapable array of historical contingencies and aesthetic renegotiations — or, as we familiarly describe them, trends.
And also:
David Lynch’s perfect pants, much like David Lynch’s perfect self, do not and cannot exist.
I am still quite in love with my own big pants — in fact, I’ve pulled out another pair of relatively large chinos from the back of my closet that I’d bought on a whim in 2018 but always felt a little silly wearing.
But now I am emboldened (embiggened?) by the tweet Weiner references in his article:
Lol, finally, I’m doing something right!
:) Teresa
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I LOL’d about that tweet 😆