THE NO-FIT FIT
Samantha Murray Greenway on the elegant comfort and timeless appeal of wide-leg trousers.
It seems hard to believe, but when Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn made wide-legged trousers her personal style statement back in the 1930s, she drew plenty of criticism and no small amount of awe. To understand the norms of the day, consider that in 1938 a woman in Los Angeles was sent to prison for wearing, ‘slacks in the courtroom’.
Hepburn carried on. Footage of an interview with her from 1981 has recently surfaced on social media. In her 70s, (still) wearing wide pants and a matching shirt, jumper thrown over her shoulders and clogs on her feet, Hepburn proclaims: “I have lived as a man. I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I’ve made enough money to support myself and I ain’t afraid of being alone.”
“Is that why you also wear pants?” asks her interviewer, the American TV journalist Barbara Walters.
“No, I just wear pants because they’re comfortable,” says Hepburn.
Independent and no-nonsense, Hepburn’s sense of self spilled over into the way she dressed. There’s some of that confident assurance in the wide trousers that have lately been populating the streets and fashion catwalks.
The most interesting examples look completely unisex. With these trousers there’s no tightness – so no hint of a curved hip or backside in evidence – and it’s that absence of the obvious which makes them look new.
Look at Billie Eilish’s super-baggy trousers at the Vanity Fair Party on the night of the Oscars. Look at homegrown designer Rory William Docherty’s most recent collections for men and women that use an identical unisex cut. Big? Roomy? Baggy? This is not just another variation on the trouser theme but a whole new fit for the eye to get used to – and it mainly comes down to the fact that the crotch is dropped.
At Loewe, waistbands rose high and settled beneath the bust. The crotches were low but, with hems grazing the ground and heels worn underneath, the effect was arrestingly elegant. Similarly, at Saint Laurent where patch pockets decorated the legs of upscale cargo pants, the cut was loose through the hips and fabric concertinaed at the ankles leaving only the pointed toe caps of high heeled shoes peeking out.
Perhaps this no-fit fit started on the street. Carhartt, the American workwear giant, has been having a glow-up recently with various designer collaborations (for the most beautiful mash-up of style and workwear, search out the Sacai + Carhartt cape). But it’s the original baggy jeans, with tool pockets and a hammer loop, worn loose and rangy and favoured by teenagers since the 1990s, which are still going strong. A wider cut is being stocked by Karen Walker.
Paul O’Neill, the global design director for Levi’s, recently told the New York Times that he noticed a rise in kids hitting “thrift stores to buy jeans with a Size 46 or 48 waist and belting them, to get that oversize look”. Levi’s have responded with a baggy family of denim, including the Baggy Dad, the Baggy Dad Wide Leg (the widest of them all) and the Baggy Cargo.
How to wear them? The kids might still be putting them with trainers, but the catwalk formula skewed towards heels. Phoebe Philo, the fashion label that every woman in fashion purportedly wants to wear, has given us what Vogue calls, ‘quite simply the perfect tailored trousers’. Dropping from a high waist, the fabric glides over the hips and falls to the floor, covering the heels worn beneath.
If it looks as though someone didn’t bother to get their trousers hemmed, that might be the point: This is not about looking neat. Think of it as elegant comfort. And applaud the fact that the elegance in this equation might simply require adding a pair of heels. Although I’m not convinced Hepburn would swap the comfort of clogs for anyone else’s idea of what was style appropriate. Back to that interview:
“Do you ever wear a skirt by the way?” asks Walters, still plugging away, seeking her soundbite.
“I have one,” says Hepburn. “I’ll wear it to your funeral.”